Composers Festival spotlight: Clare Glackin

Resident composer Clare Glackin comes to the 2017 Mizzou International Composers Festival from the West Coast via Houston, Texas, where she recently graduated with an MM degree from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music.

A native of Mount Vernon, Washington, Glackin (pictured) previously earned a BM from the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, where she was named a Discovery Scholar and Outstanding Graduate of the composition program.

Her primary teachers have been Stephen Hartke, Frank Ticheli, Pierre Jalbert and Richard Lavenda. She also attended the Aspen Music Festival and School in the summer of 2016, where she studied with Chris Theofanidis.

Glackin writes instrumental and vocal concert works, seeking “to craft music that is engaging, unique, and fulfilling for both performers and audiences.” Her music has been performed by the Culver City Symphony, USC Thornton Symphony, Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra, and others.

Her composition “Sammy Saguaro” will be included on the upcoming CD 16×16: The Rice Encores Project, which compiles sixteen new short works for violin and piano written by composition students at Shepherd School of Music.

Also an oboist, Glackin has been a member of the USC Concert Orchestra (receiving the USC Concert Orchestra Award in 2015), and Rice University’s Campanile Orchestra, and has played in various premieres of student compositions in performances at USC, Brevard Music Festival, the Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium, and more. When not composing, she also enjoys running, biking, kayaking, and baking desserts.

You can find out more about Clare Glackin by listening to the interview she did earlier this summer for KMUC’s “Mizzou Music” program, and you can hear some examples of her music on her SoundCloud page and in the embedded players below.

“Concertino for Oboe and Orchestra” (2014), performed on October 23, 2014 at Bovard Auditorium on the USC campus in Los Angeles by Rachel Van Amburgh, oboe, and the USC Thornton Symphony, conducted by Donald Crockett.

“Sonata for Violin and Piano” (2015)

“Poetic Study” (2015)