Erica Glenn composed her first piano solo at age six, won Brigham Young University's Composition Competition at age nine, penned a full-length award-winning musical at age twelve, and hasn't stopped creating music since. Erica's choral compositions have been commissioned and performed by choirs across America. In 2000, her full-length musical, Dancing Shoes, was awarded “Best Play of the Year” at the Valley Center Playhouse, and in 2004, her children’s musical, Between the Lines, placed first in the VIP Arts Competition. Erica publishes six of her scripts through LazyBee Publications. These scripts have received performances throughout the US, the UK, and as far away as Hong Kong, Spain, Germany, Australia, and Ukraine. Her most recent musical appeared at the 2012 New York Musical Theatre Festival.
Erica's classical compositions have been performed under the direction of Sam Pilafin (founder of the Empire Brass Quintet); Steinway Artist, Walter Cosand; Longitude conductor, Paul Brust; and cellist, Christopher Costanza. In 2006, the St. Lawrence String Quartet read her first string quartet, and soprano Carole Fitzpatrick (who has sung over 60 major roles in German opera houses) recorded one of Erica's art songs. In 2010, the Longitude New Music Ensemble performed her song cycle, Portrait of Ukraine, and the following year, soprano Karyl Ryczek and pianist Wayman Chin premiered her setting of Denise Levertov's "That Passeth All Understanding" as part of the annual SeptemberFest at the Longy School of Music. Erica won the 2006 Chanticleer Student Composer Competition for her choral work, "Gather Ye Rosebuds," and was a semi-finalist in the 2007 Sorel Medallion Composition Competition for "Jabberwocky," also for SATB chorus. More recently, she was a winner in the international Opera-in-a-Month competition sponsored by VocalWorks and was commissioned to write a Christmas piece for the 25th anniversary of the renowned Utah Children's Choir. Recent composition recitals have taken place at Arizona State University (Senior Honors Recital) and the Mariupol College of Music in Ukraine. In both 2011 and 2012, she won the Longy Graduation Processional/Recessional Competition which culminated in performances by the Redline Brass Quintet.
Erica graduated with her MM in composition from the Longy School of Music where she studied on the Nadia and Lili Boulanger Scholarship and served as the theory department assistant. She also worked as an Experiential Education assistant, establishing a children's musical theatre and private piano program in a low-income area. Erica has studied composition with John Morrison, Paul Brust, Jody Rockmaker, and Randall Shinn and has met for private sessions with Pulitzer Prize-winning composers John Corigliano and Michael Colgrass. She publishes with Pelican Music and, in connection with Pelican, has been a featured composer at the International Women's Brass Conference.
Erica served as President of the ASU Chapter of the Society of Composers from 2005-06 and headed coordination efforts for the 2006 Society of Composers National Student Conference in Tempe. She graduated, Summa Cum Laude, with a BM in composition from Arizona State University where she studied on the Louise Lincoln Kerr Composition Scholarship and a National Merit Scholarship. She also studied on scholarship for a semester at the University of Sussex in Brighton, England and became a founding member/composer for a large-scale musical humanitarian effort ("Life for Linda"). In addition, she founded the DreamMaker Workshop: A Musical Theater Company for People with Special Needs and was given the Violet Richardson Award for her service.
Erica spent the summer of 2011 working as an intern for Broadway legend Charles Strouse (composer of Annie; Bye, Bye Birdie) and assisting him and his collaborative partner, Richard Maltby, with various projects (transcriptions, arrangements, accompanying, assistant music directing). Her own full-lenth musical, The Weaver of Raveloe (based on George Eliot's Silas Marner), was selected for an intensive, six-week workshop at the Brigham Young University in 2011. In July 2012, The Weaver of Raveloe premiered at the New York Musical Theatre Festival as a developmental reading.
Praise for Erica's music from living composers:
"Full of drama and rich in harmonic and melodic substance." (Charles Strouse)
"Gently lyrical with darker episodes." (Ed Hughes)
"Distinctly American." (John Corigliano)
"Talented and professional." (Alla Pavlova)