Widely performed throughout the country, the music of American composer Gwyneth Walker is beloved by performers and audiences alike for its energy, beauty, reverence, drama, and humor. Dr. Gwyneth Walker (b. 1947) is a graduate of Brown University and the Hartt School of Music. She holds B.A., M.M. and D.M.A. degrees in Music Composition. A former faculty member of the Oberlin College Conservatory, she resigned from academic employment in 1982 in order to pursue a career as a full-time composer. For nearly 30 years, she lived on a dairy farm in Braintree, Vermont before returning to live in her childhood hometown of New Canaan, Connecticut.

A composer since age two, Gwyneth Walker has always placed great value on writing in a broad array of genres. More than 400 commissioned works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, solo instruments, chorus, and solo voice have been created—all arising from the impetus of performers and collaboration with musicians. Over the decades, she has traveled throughout North America to attend performances of her works and to meet her musician colleagues.

Gwyneth Walker is a proud resident of New England. She was the recipient of the 2000 “Lifetime Achievement Award” from the Vermont Arts Council and the 2018 “Alfred Nash Patterson Lifetime Achievement Award” from Choral Arts New England. In 2020, her alma mater, the Hartt School of Music of the University of Hartford, presented her with the Hartt Alumni Award.

Walker’s catalog includes musical works of many sorts: arrangements of traditional folk songs; original music in both vocal and instrumental genres inspired by great American poetry; dramatic works that combine music with readings, acting, and movement; works for student performers of all ages; and large-scale pieces for professional players and ensembles.

The music of Gwyneth Walker is published by E.C. Schirmer (choral/vocal/instrumental music) and Lauren Keiser Music (orchestral/instrumental music).

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Libby Larsen (b. 1950, Wilmington, Delaware) is one of America’s most performed living composers.  She has composed over 500 works including orchestra, opera, vocal and chamber music, symphonic winds and band. Her work is widely recorded.

An advocate for the music and musicians of our time, in 1973 Larsen co-founded the Minnesota Composers Forum, now the American Composer’s Forum. Grammy Award winner and former holder of the Papamarkou Chair at John W. Kluge Center of the Library of Congress, Larsen has also held residencies with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Charlotte Symphony, and the Colorado Symphony. As Artistic Director of the John Duffy Institute for New Opera (2014-2020 ), she guides a faculty of practicing professional artists in nurturing and production of new opera by American Composers.  Larsen’s 2017 biography, Libby Larsen: Composing an American Life, Denise Von Glahn, author, is available from the University Illinois Press.

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Z. Randall Stroope is an American composer and conductor.  He has had recent conducting engagements in Hong Kong, Rome, Barcelona, Singapore, Canterbury Cathedral (England), Berliner Dom (Germany), Salzburger Dom (Austria), St. John (Canada), Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Washington, D.C.), Carnegie Hall (New York), and performed music for mass at the Vatican on 11 different occasions.  He is also the Artistic Director for two summer music festivals in Europe and taught composition for FENIARCO (Italy choral conductors)  in 2017 and 2018.   Randall’s composition teachers were Cecil Effinger and Normand Lockwood, both students of the famous French teacher/composer, Nadia Boulanger (student of Gabriel Fauré).

Randall has his own publishing entity (www.zrstroope.com) along with various copyists and a chief marketing assistant.  He has written commissions for orchestras, soloists, choral ensembles, and  works for combined forces.  Recent commissions include works for Raffles Singers (Singapore), Michigan Choral Conductors Consortium, Arlington Master Chorale, West Point Military Academy, Müller Chamber Choir (Taiwan), among others.  Some of his works also published by Oxford University Press, Alliance Music Publications (Houston), Carl Fischer, Santa Barbara Music Press (California), Colla Voce (Indiana) and others. His shorter choral works — best known of which are Conversion of Saul,  Lamentations of Jeremiah,  Amor de mi alma, Christi Mutter, We Behold Once Again the Stars, Go Lovely Rose, The Pasture, Revelation, Homeland, I Am Not Yours, Caritas et Amor, Song to the Moon, Inscription of Hope and In Paradisum — have sold four million copies. His choral cycle — Four Sonnets of Garcilaso (which contains Amor de mi alma) is also one of his most performed works. Extended works include Hodie! (This Day) for mixed chorus, brass/organ/percussion, Carmina Pax (a 30′ work premiered in 2018), for mixed chorus, orchestra, boy soloist, and baritone, American Rhapsody American Rhapsody for mixed chorus and brass quintet or strings, and his solo song cycle, Love’s Waning Seasons Love’s Waning Seasons.  He has published many instrumental works, including Fanfare (brass/percussion/organ) and Amor de mi alma (wind ensemble). Randall is particularly drawn to the poetry of Sara Teasdale, George Herbert, Rainer Maria Rilke, James Agee and Robert Frost. Recordings of his works can be heard through Spotify, YouTube and his website (www.zrstroope.com).