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) |  I like lyricism, breath, blending, and the magic of phrasing |  I like dissonance, intensity, and contrast |
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 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
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.
Upcoming Events
August
2022
GATHERING ROUNDS AVAILABLE
Exclusively distributed here
My book of 52 original rounds for choirs and other adventurous singers is a collection of music for two to six voices or groups set to poetry and prose by women–some longtime favorites, some newly discovered, all inspiring and interesting.
These Gathering Rounds are organized in a generally seasonal way starting with one for the week of New Year's and ending in the snow of December. The book is spiral-bound for easy page turns and music stand or piano use. Rounds are great for warmups, icebreakers, sight-reading, processionals, recessionals, transitions, encores, sing-alongs, or just for fun. Order details coming soon! Meanwhile, download a preview of the collection with a set of free rounds at the link below.
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.
Past Events
May
21
2022
OPUS 7 IN CONCERT
University Congregational Church
4515 - 16th Ave NE, Seattle
Seattle, Washington
Opus 7 performed 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.
March
19
2022
MPLS IN CONCERT
Wellstone Center
St. Paul, Minnesota
MPLS (imPulse) premiered 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.
February
5
2022
FEAR NO MUSIC IN CONCERT
Streaming concert at 11 am and 8 pm
From Oregon
My new piece "A thousand cuts" for Bb clarinet and string quartet was 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.
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.
Music with Oregon Repertory Singers
Livestreamed concert and conversation with
Composer Stacey Philipps featuring
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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