Dr. Jennifer Higdon
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Dr. Jennifer Higdon will be in-residence with the Fredonia School of Music twice during the 2024-2025 academic year as the third Claudette Sorel Visiting Artist.
The residency is made possible through a grant from The Sorel Organization through the Fredonia College Foundation. The Sorel organization has awarded the Fredonia School of Music a three-year grant to welcome women artists of international distinction to campus for various open-to-the-public interactive events with students and faculty.
Dr. Higdon will first visit the Fredonia campus from Sept. 12 to 14. On Thursday, Sept. 12, she will participate in a roundtable discussion about women in music at 7 p.m. in Rosch Recital Hall with Fredonia faculty members Dr. Paula Holcomb, Dr. Emily Schaad, and Professor Laura Koepke, with Eastman School of Music Dean Kate Sheeran.
On Friday, Sept. 13, Higdon will give a lecture/presentation on her music in Mason Hall Room 2019 at 4 p.m. and will travel to Buffalo to a concert of her chamber music by Fredonia faculty and members of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra in the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church at 7:30 p.m.
On Saturday, Sept. 14, Higdon will give a master class to Fredonia student composers in Mason Hall Room 1080 at 2 p.m., followed by a repeat performance of her chamber music by Fredonia faculty and members of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra in Juliet J. Rosch Recital Hall at 8 p.m.
All events are free and open to the public.
In the spring semester, Dr. Higdon will return to campus March 6 to 8, and the Fredonia School of Music will present numerous events including a second chamber concert. The residency will culminate with a performance by the Fredonia College Symphony Orchestra on March 8.
About the artist:
Dr. Jennifer Higdon makes her living solely from commissions and publishing. Her works represent a range of genres, from chamber to orchestral and wind ensemble, as well as vocal, choral and opera.
Dr. Higdon received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her Violin Concerto. She is also a three-time GRAMMY-winner. She received a bachelor's degree in Music from Bowling Green State University, an Artist Diploma from The Curtis Institute of Music, and a M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. She has been awarded honorary doctorates from the Hartt School and Bowling Green State University.
Higdon's list of commissioners is extensive and includes The Philadelphia Orchestra, The Chicago Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, as well such groups as the Tokyo String Quartet, the Lark Quartet, Eighth Blackbird, and the President’s Own United States Marine Band. She has also written works for such renowned artists as baritone Thomas Hampson and mezzo Sasha Cooke; pianists Yuja Wang and Gary Graffman; and violinists Joshua Bell, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, and Hilary Hahn. Her first opera, “Cold Mountain,” was commissioned by Santa Fe Opera, Opera Philadelphia, North Carolina Opera, and Minnesota Opera. It was awarded the prestigious International Opera Award for Best World Premiere in 2016; a suite from that opera was recently co-commissioned and performed by a group of 36 orchestras.
Upcoming premieres for the 2024-25 season include a new opera for Pittsburgh Opera, a chamber work for the Icarus Quartet, and an orchestral work for the Chicago Youth Symphony.
Her music has been hailed by Fanfare Magazine as having “the distinction of being at once complex, sophisticated but readily accessible emotionally,” with the Times of London citing it as “…traditionally rooted yet imbued with integrity and freshness.” The Chicago Sun Times recently cited her music as “both modern and timeless, complex and sophisticated, and immensely engaging in a way that both charms and galvanizes an audience craving something new and full of urgency, yet not distancing.” John von Rhein of the Chicago Tribune called her writing, “beautiful, accessible, inventive, and impeccably crafted.”
Higdon enjoys more than 250 performances annually of her works. Her orchestral work, “blue cathedral,” is one of the most performed contemporary orchestral pieces in the repertoire — having had more than 1,100 performances).
Higdon’s works have been recorded on more than 90 CDs. The U.S. Library of Congress has added the London Philharmonic recording of her Percussion Concerto to the National Recording Registry.
She was recently inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Philosophical Society, which was founded by Benjamin Franklin.
