
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 |
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![]() 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 |
![]() 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 explore human experiences, lean into dissonance, and share vibrations with those on the stage and in the audience. Drawing inspiration from mythology, documentaries, fairy tales, current and historical events, personal narratives, and poetry, along with modal harmonies, folk songs, Renaissance polyphony, hymns, shape note music, and the melodic and rhythmic elements of the world around her, this “…rising star,” is one of “…Portland’s most forward-thinking composers,” who is “…establishing a new normal of what will someday be called early 21st-century classical music.”
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An early- and new-music devotée, Philipps is also 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 and board member of Resonance Ensemble. Recent projects include the adventurous and versatile book of “Gathering Rounds: 52 Original Rounds and Canons for Choirs,” and a forthcoming book of even more rounds for beginning and intermediate singers. Her music for choirs, chamber ensembles, soloists, and orchestras has been performed across North America, and she holds degrees in composition, philosophy, math, and culinary arts (just to mix things up). Philipps writes music, gardens, and herds cats in Portland, Oregon, where she is the proprietor of Sirensong Publishing, the primary distributor of her work.
Press
Matthew Neil Andrews for Oregon Arts Watch on Sosira, respira
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
Upcoming Events
Now!
GATHERING ROUNDS AVAILABLE!
52 Rounds and Canons for Choirs Set to Poetry and Prose by Women
Available right here!
It's here! The book of Gathering Rounds is a vibrant, engaging collection offering a round or canon for each week of the year featuring poetry and prose by women – some famous, some infamous, some longtime favorites, some newly discovered, all captivating – set to original music by Stacey Philipps.
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Bound in a handy 6" x 9" spiral-bound book, these rounds and canons are welcoming, encouraging, flexible, musically and textually meaningful miniatures to enjoy with anywhere from a few people around a campfire to a large choir in a traditional performance space. Each song is enriched with brief program notes and an introductory biography of the poet or writer.
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Gathering Rounds are great for choral warmups, icebreakers, sight-reading, processionals, recessionals, transitions, encores, sing-alongs, and just for fun. Written for two to six voices or groups for a WIDE variety of skill levels, ranges, and keys, some Gathering Rounds are easy enough for children and beginning singers, some are challenging for expert choristers, and most are in between. Volume 2 is in the works for more beginning singers!
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Order your copy of Gathering Rounds now! Discounts for a six-pack and for a classroom- or ensemble-sized box of 30.
October
14 & 15
2023
RESONANCE ENSEMBLE IN CONCERT WITH ALBUM RELEASE
October 14, 7:30 pm
October 15, 3:00 pm
Lincoln Recital Hall, Portland State University
Portland, Oregon
Resonance Ensemble's debut album LISTEN is dropping at their 15th-anniversary kick-off concerts October 14 & 15 – album pre-orders are open and tickets are on sale for the celebratory season! Along with music by Melissa Dunphy, Dominick DiOrio, Jake Runestad, Mari Esabel Valverde, Steven Sametz, and Renee Favand-See, the album includes my SSAA song Witch Trial (based on testimony from actual witch trials...) in a gorgeous rendition by the ensemble's incredible treble voices. Portland, come for the singing, stay for the post-concert panel after each concert, where we'll be talking more music.
October
21 & 22
2023
OREGON REPERTORY SINGERS IN CONCERT WITH ALBUM RELEASE
October 21 & 22, 4:00 PM
Patricia Reser Center for the Arts
Beaverton, Oregon
Celebrating their 50th anniversary, Oregon Repertory Singers is releasing their latest album of music by Eriks Esenvalds, Eric Whitacre, Morten Lauridsen, Franz Biebl, Ola Gjeilo, Naomi LaViolette, and me with my SSATB song Close Distancing in a stunningly beautiful performance. This album drops on concert weekend October 21 & 22 (get your tickets!) when we'll be singing Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil at the beautiful Reser Center.
January 26
2024
NWACDA PRESENTATION: THINK CHORAL, SHOP LOCAL!
Local commissioning in your own community
January 26
Patricia Reser Center for the Arts
Spokane, Washington
ACDA members, I hope to see you at this presentation!
Working with a local composer creates meaningful, relevant, engaging, personal experiences for singers, builds community beyond the choir, exposes singers to creatives working in their own town, and can offer unique, collaborative musical experiences. This encounter choir session will demonstrate the breadth of projects Oregon Repertory Singers Youth Choir and composer-in-residence Stacey Philipps have created over the last two seasons while rebuilding the choirs. This session will also give practical advice on finding local composers and commissioning everything from the simplest song to extended, rich, long-term projects. This will include the nuts and bolts of contracts, deposits, and deadlines. Hear examples while learning how to harness the strengths and skills in your own community to bring inspiration, innovation, and impact to your choirs.
Past Events
July 2-11
2023
OREGON REPERTORY SINGERS ON TOUR
Prague, Salzburg, & Vienna
I'll be on tour in the alto section with the Oregon Repertory Singers this summer. If you're in the area, contact me for concert venues and dates to hear an eclectic program of music from a wonderful group of singers!
June 4
2023
OREGON REPERTORY SINGERS YOUTH CHOIRS IN CONCERT
6:00 pm
First United Methodist Church
1828 SW Jefferson
Portland, Oregon
As composer-in-residence for the Oregon Repertory Singers Youth Choirs for the past two seasons, I've had the honor and pleasure of writing new music for all the singers in this wonderful organization. This season, I've written one piece for the entire K-12 choir to sing together! This interesting project incorporates new music, old music, poetry and nursery rhymes, multiple languages, and a cool "stellar hum" (you'll have to come hear it!), plus all the logistical considerations of age and topical interests, singing ranges and experience, and rehearsal times for multiple sets of hundreds of singers – quite a fun and challenging set of parameters!
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Find more information about this wonderful spring concert, "Beautiful Wild Fores," which includes several pieces by composer Jake Runestad, at the button below.
May 13 & 14
2023
OREGON REPERTORY SINGERS IN CONCERT
6:00 pm
First United Methodist Church
1828 SW Jefferson
Portland, Oregon
As composer-in-residence for the Oregon Repertory Singers Youth Choirs for the past two seasons, I've had the honor and pleasure of writing new music for all the singers in this wonderful organization. This season, I've written one piece for the entire K-12 choir to sing together! This interesting project incorporates new music, old music, poetry and nursery rhymes, multiple languages, and a cool "stellar hum" (you'll have to come hear it!), plus all the logistical considerations of age and topical interests, singing ranges and experience, and rehearsal times for multiple sets of hundreds of singers – quite a fun and challenging set of parameters!
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Find more information about this wonderful spring concert, "Beautiful Wild Fores," which includes several pieces by composer Jake Runestad, at the button below.
May 5
2023
SCAPPOOSE HIGH SCHOOL CONCERT CHOIR GOES TO STATE
LaSells Stewart Center, Oregon State University
Corvallis, Oregon
Scappoose High School Chamber Choir will be performing a set of songs for their state competition, including my new arrangement "Scarborough Rose," written for and with them as a collaborative multi-visit project last winter. The students contributed ideas, text responses and lyric inspiration, and we had a wonderful time creating this song combining elements of "Scarborough Fair" with the well-known round, "Rose Red" along with a fresh take on the story.

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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