Born in Brooklyn in 1962, Jennifer Higdon grew up near Atlanta and in Appalachian Tennessee, teaching herself flute at 15 and playing drums in high school marching band… not beginning college composition studies until she was 21. Nevertheless, she earned degrees from Penn and the Curtis institute, where she would later teach composing.
Says Higdon, "Because I came to classical music very differently than most people, the newer stuff had more appeal for me than the older." Her inspirations come from her childhood love of rock and folk music, leading to a neoromantic style she describes as “intuitive” and “instinctive,” rather than using established formal rules… “storytelling through music,” she says, “even if you don’t have words.”
Higdon frequently composes for some of the most prominent musicians in the world, such as the Chicago Symphony, the Tokyo String Quartet, and violinists Hilary Hahn and Joshua Bell. Her Violin Concerto won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music; her first opera (based on the Appalachian-themed civil war novel Cold Mountain) was the first American work to win the International Opera Award for Best World Premiere; three of her concertos have been awarded Grammys for Best Contemporary Classical Composition; and her tone poem blue cathedral … in memory of her late brother, a clarinet player… has been performed over 600 times since its premiere.
Jennifer Higdon… a Composing Woman.
Repertoire
Night Creatures, flute and piano
blue cathedral (2000)
Concerto for Orchestra (2002)
O magnum mysterium (2002)
Southern Harmony for String Quartet (2003)
Secret and Glass Gardens for piano (date)
Supporting Materials
Accessible websites relevant to the composer
http://jenniferhigdon.com/index.html
https://www.bgsu.edu/business/centers-and-institutes/center-for-entrepreneurial-leadership/e-week/entrepreneurial-hall-of-fame/hall-of-fame-inductees/jennifer-higdon.html
