STACEY PHILIPPS
Composer
 I like to collaborate and communicate |  I like telling stories with the complexity, nuance, and metaphor of music |  I like to think about what intrigues and entices performers and audiences |  I like to gather information, brainstorm, let ideas percolate, and receive and give feedback |  I like to explore the grey areas of life, where questions are plentiful and answers are questionable |  I like poetry, essays, news, fairy tales, personal anecdotes, courtroom drama, biographies, declarations, accusations, debates, justice, daily minutiae, anniversaries, adventures, mathematical schemes, conflict, resolution, suspension, animation, translation, truth, lies, observations, hypotheses, discoveries, and pure conjecture (and the Oxford comma) |
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 I like lyricism, breath, blending, and the magic of phrasing |  I like dissonance, intensity, and contrast |  I like rhythmic expectation, change, and trickiness |  I like messing things up and fixing them up again (or not) |  (When things are really messed up, I also like baking, because I know that's always going to turn out well) |  I like how overtones can give goosebumps |
 I love the infinite spectrum of colors and timbres of the human voice and acoustic instruments |  I love beauty, surprise, humor, poignancy, silliness, spectacle, pathos, banter, curiosity, and deeply felt emotions |  I love finding out if what I thought and wrote and described is what you saw and understood and performed and made your own |  I love to make things and watch the metamorphosis from notion to idea to notation to rehearsal to concert |  I love the ephemeral thrill of live performance right here, right now, and never again |  I love the chance for magic and connection at every concert |
 Let's make some music |
About
Stacey Philipps writes music to share the thrill of creation, collaboration, and performance. An early- and new-music devotee, Philipps is a multi-instrumentalist and lifelong singer currently in the alto section of the Oregon Repertory Singers, as well as the Composer-in-Residence for the Oregon Repertory Singers Youth Choir. From the sounds of the mountain dulcimer, drum set, ukulele, piano, and banjo in her studio to the wish list of harpsichord, viola da gamba, and crotales, Philipps also draws inspiration from mythology, documentaries, fairy tales, current events, personal narratives, and poetry, along with modal harmonies, folk songs, hymns, shape note music, and the melodic and rhythmic elements of the world around her. Her music for choirs, chamber ensembles, soloists, and orchestras has been performed across the country, and she holds degrees in composition from Portland State University and in philosophy from St. John’s College, Santa Fe. A finalist for the American Choral Directors Association Genesis Prize, Honorable Mention recipient of Chicago A Cappella's HerVoice competition, and third place winner of the American Prize Short Choral Division, Philipps is also a member of the American Composers Forum, the American Choral Directors Association, and ASCAP, as well as the proprietor of Sirensong Publishing, the primary distributor of her work.
Press
Bennett Campbell Ferguson feature article on Stacey Philipps in Oregon Arts Watch
Composer Derrick Skye on Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming
Matthew Neil Andrews for Oregon Arts Watch on Witch Trial
Bruce and Daryl Browne for Oregon Arts Watch on Sudden Light
Brett Campbell for Oregon Arts Watch
Matthew Neil Andrews for Oregon Arts Watch
Brett Campbell for Willamette Week
Events
Now!
ALBUM RELEASED!
Everywhere!
Oregon Repertory Singers' new album Shadow on the Stars celebrates music of Dr. Morten Lauridson and composers from the Pacific Northwest, including me and many of my favorite colleagues. The album features live performances of Lauridsen's Madrigali – my absolute favorite pieces of his – and Sure on This Shining Night, along with stellar studio recordings of music by Joan Szymko, John Muehleisen, Giselle Wyers, and Steven Goodwin and Naomi LaViolette.
Events
Now!
ALBUM RELEASED!
Everywhere you get music!
Oregon Repertory Singers' album Shadow on the Stars celebrates music of Morten Lauridson and composers from the Pacific Northwest, including me and some of my favorite colleagues. The album features live performances of Lauridsen's Madrigali – my absolute favorite pieces of his – and Sure on This Shining Night, along with stellar studio recordings of music by Joan Szymko, John Muehleisen, Giselle Wyers, and Steven Goodwin and Naomi LaViolette.
October 8
OREGON ACDA FALL READING SESSION
Taylor-Meade Performance Center, McCready Hall, Pacific University
2043 College Way, Forest Grove, OR
My new piece "Close Distancing" will be featured on the Oregon American Choral Directors Association reading session. Sheet music and a preview recording by the Oregon Repertory Singers is available here and on JW Pepper. Hope you can make it!
October
23 & 24
OREGON REPERTORY SINGERS IN CONCERT
First United Methodist Church
1838 SW Jefferson, Portland, OR
My friends and colleagues at the Oregon Repertory Singers will be performing a beautiful, moving, and inspiring concert for their in-person return to the concert hall. Featuring old favorites and new sounds, including my song "Close Distancing," this event will be a landmark reunion of singers and audience.
November
28
OREGON REPERTORY SINGERS YOUTH CHOIR IN CONCERT
Virtual Performance from Portland, OR
This is performance day for the Oregon Repertory Singers Youth Choir! As their new Composer-in-Residence, I've written new music for each youth ensemble this session, and I'm enjoying connecting with young voices and minds, as well as showing them what a composer is (how old were you when you first met a composer?). I'm thrilled to be coordinating all this new music with ORSYC Artistic Director Aubrey Patterson, who is also a friend and collaborator. Aubrey is energetic, inspiring, engaging, educational, and all-around amazing: if I were still in the K-12 age range, she's the one I'd want to sing with! If you know kids who love or want to learn more about how to sing, you can find out more here.
December
5,11, & 12
OREGON REPERTORY SINGERS IN CONCERT
First United Methodist Church
1838 SW Jefferson, Portland, OR
These festive concerts sell out every year and feature a seasonal program of favorite carols and sweeping productions, like Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on Christmas Carols for choir and organ, on the program this time.
January 16
ACDA Reading Session at OMEA Conference
Eugene, Oregon
OMEA members can join the reading session to hear my Gathering Round called Singing Time for four or more voices in any octave with optional guitar (tab included!), along with choral music from a host of wonderful composers.
February 5
FEAR NO MUSIC IN CONCERT
Streaming concert at 11 am and 8 pm from Oregon
My new piece "A thouand cuts" for Bb clarinet and string quartet will be part of a program of new music on social and racial justice, environmental themes, and bridging divisions in society performed and recorded by Fear No Music and written at the Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium last summer. Concert details coming soon!
March 19
MPLS IN CONCERT
Wellstone Center
St. Paul, Minnesota
MPLS (imPulse) will be premiering the SSATB version of my song In the Moment at their spring concert presenting vocal works with texts by children. The lyrics for this piece are from a poem by seven-year-old Hilda Conkling (as written down by her mother, poet Grace Conkling) and call to mind the focused, imaginative world of a child admiring a butterfly. Written during the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918-1919, the text is a powerful reminder to stay in the moment when the world is overwhelming. Also available as a solo art song for high voice with very simple piano accompaniment here.
May 21
OPUS 7 IN CONCERT
Seattle, Washington
Opus 7 will be performing my song Love Tender Breathing Fragrant for SATBB at their spring concert featuring music by Northwest composers. This piece explores a small, potent text by J.D. Fendell in musing on love: its myopic nature, its intensity, its fragility, its capriciousness, and its evanescence. Details coming soon!
Report a Performance
Are you or your ensemble performing a piece I wrote? Fantastic – thank you! Please send me a program from your concert and any details I can help publicize.
Livestreamed concert and conversation with
Composer Stacey Philipps and performances by Oregon Repertory Singers (begins at 8:31)
Sheet music for songs featured in the livestreamed concert
Contact
Question? Comment? Request? Inquiry? Send me an email.
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