Nancy Galbraith

Vira Heinz Professor of Composition

Bio

Composer Nancy Galbraith is Professor and Head of Composition at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Music, and holds the Vira I. Heinz Professorship of Music endowed chair at the College of Fine Arts. Her compositions for instrumental and choral ensembles are performed worldwide. Her music has earned praise for its rich harmonic texture, rhythmic vitality, emotional and spiritual depth, and wide range of expression. She is published by Subito Music in Verona, New Jersey.

Her symphonic works have enjoyed a number of performances by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, including premieres led by Gennady Rozhdetsvensky, Mariss Jansons, and Donald Runnicles. Her chamber works have been performed and recorded by members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. Her works for wind ensembles have become standard repertoire for concert bands around the world and appear on numerous recordings by college and professional ensembles. In 2010, the composer’s Streaming Green, was featured in a Christmas recital in the East Wing of the White House.

Galbraith has compiled an extensive catalog of choral works, including two commissions from Robert Page—Missa Mysteriorum and Requiem—for performances by the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh. Requiem was commissioned for Maestro Page’s farewell concert in 2005. In 2016, the Bach Choir of Pittsburgh commissioned and premiered Smoke and Steel at the Carrie Furnace Steel Mill Historic Site in Braddock, Pennsylvania, She has also enjoyed commissions from the NEA, the Providence Singers (RI), the Pittsburgh Camerata, the Lutheran Theological Seminary Gettysburg, the Benedictine monks of St Procopius Abbey (Lisle, IL), and the Harvard Glee Club.

Two recordings for Centaur Records—Other Sun and Strange Travels—include four electroacoustic chamber works composed for world renowned Baroque flutist Stephen Schultz, including a collaboration with Pittsburgh’s popular electric cello trio, Cello Fury. Her works appear on numerous recordings including over a dozen anthologies including Dancing Through Time, which features a double concerto with Shultz and violist David Harding performing with amplification and delay effects.

Galbraith is also an accomplished pianist and organist, and has written a number of works for those instruments. Her Piano Sonata No. 1 is a familiar component of contemporary piano literature and her Three Preludes for Piano was premiered in Seoul in 2013. Recently, the Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh premiered her Piano Concerto No. 3 with pianist Sung-Im Kim.

web site:  nancygalbraith.com