Here’s another in our series of profiles of the resident composers taking part in this year’s Mizzou New Music Summer Festival:
The most experienced among the 2010 Festival’s eight resident composers, New York City native Edie Hill (pictured) earned a bachelor’s degree in music composition and piano performance at Bennington College, where she studied with Vivian Fine. She earned her master’s and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Minnesota with principal composition teacher Lloyd Ultan, and also has studied extensively with Libby Larsen.
Currently, Hill serves as composer-in-residence at The Schubert Club in St. Paul, Minn. and lives in Minneapolis, where she also works as a freelance composer.
From solo to orchestra, epigram to epic, her music has been presented by Lincoln Center in New York City, LA County Museum of Art, Walker Art Center, Cape May Festival (NJ) and the Downtown Arts Festival (NYC). Hill was a McKnight Artist Fellow in 1996, 2001 and 2006, a Bush Artist Fellow in 1999 and 2007, and has won grants from the Jerome Foundation, ASCAP, Meet the Composer, Chamber Music America and the Argosy Foundation.
You can hear samples of Edie Hill’s music on her website, MySpace page and Facebook page. And for even more about Hill, check out this profile of her published in 2006 by Mpls/St. Paul magazine.
In the first video window embedded below, there’s a short video feature about Hill and a work she created last year for the Twin Cities Women’s Choir. The second clip shows flautist Linda Chatterton performing “Harvest Moon and Tide,” the second part of a five-movement solo flute work written for her by Hill. The complete piece, “This Floating World,” is inspired by the imagery of five haiku poems.