Festival Composers

Stacy Garrop

Stacy Garrop’s music is centered on dramatic and lyrical storytelling. Stacy shares stories by taking audiences on sonic journeys – some simple and beautiful, while others are complicated and dark – depending on the needs and dramatic shape of the story. New Music USA and the League of American Orchestras have chosen Stacy and the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra as one of five orchestra/composer pairings for Music Alive’s 2016-2019 residence program. Stacy has received the Barlow Prize, a Fromm Music Foundation grant, three Barlow Endowment commissions, and the Sackler Music Composition Prize. Theodore Presser Company publishes her chamber and orchestral works; she self-publishes her choral pieces under Inkjar Publishing Company. Stacy is a recording artist with Cedille Records; her works are also commercially available on ten additional labels. Stacy has been commissioned by Kronos Quartet, Chanticleer, Albany Symphony, Capitol Saxophone Quartet, Gaudete Brass Quintet, Chicago a cappella, Piedmont East Bay Children’s Chorus, San Francisco Choral Society, and Volti. She has served as composer-in-residence with the Albany Symphony and Skaneateles Festival, and was on the faculty of Fresh Inc Festival (2012-2017). She taught composition full-time at Roosevelt University (2000-2016) before launching a freelance career. For more information, please visit her website at www.garrop.com or her all-things-composition blog at www.composerinklings.com/

Jacqueline Butler Hairston

Award-winning ASCAP composer-arranger, Jacqueline Butler Hairston, legendary former Bay Area pianist, music educator, African Diaspora Specialist, Church Musician, and Vocal Coach, is a Sacramento resident and recent commissioned composer for Maestro Robert Geary’s (Piedmont Chorus) 2018 International Choral Festival for 500 singers from around the world. Hairston’s A FREEDOM QUODLIBET skillfully weaves text and motifs from traditional spirituals and from Alice Walker’s “Joie de Vivre” (O Freedom).The world premiere is scheduled for July 2018 at the Congregational Church in Berkeley, CA.

    A twice invited Carnegie Hall Guest Conductor (2012, 2016), Jacqueline Hairston created and arranged works of the African Diaspora for her Mass Choir of 200 and 300 singers respectively. Her 2012 Carnegie world-premiere was a tribute to Jester Hairston (her esteemed cousin). Her 2016 program paid tribute to the Pulitzer awardee, writer-poet Alice Walker, internationally acclaimed Jazz instrumentalist Wynton Marsalis, and world renowned soprano Kathleen Battle. 

    Hairston received her pre-college musical education from the Juilliard School of Music; Howard University (B. Mus.Ed.) and Columbia University (M.A. Music, Music Education). A retired music professor from Oakland’s Merritt and Laney Colleges, she taught at UC Berkeley’s Young Musicians Program; Choir and Piano at the Oakland School for the Arts; designed a Gospel/Jazz course at Oakland’s Mills College.  

    A Vocal/Piano Coach for over 45 years, she is a member of the Recording Academy (NARAS), previously on the Board of Governors, SF Chapter. A practitioner of Sound-Healing, Jacqueline Hairston created Bay area college courses, HEALING THE SOUL THROUGH AND WITH MUSIC and released her pioneering “healing music” Piano CD, entitled Spiritual Roots + Classical Fruits: A Healing Harvest (available on iTunes).