BIOGRAPHY

Composer Lucy Shirley’s works are polystylistic and playful, often focusing on personal experience and aspects of the human voice. Originally from Indianapolis, Indiana, Shirley’s earliest musical influences were gleaned from a deep obsession with Broadway musicals and long car rides listening to her mom’s mixtapes of classic Americana, and she often still incorporates aspects of theatricality and folk melody into her current music-making.

Her music has been featured in festivals such as the Norfolk New Music Workshop, June in Buffalo, HighSCORE, the Zodiac Chamber Music Festival, the Napoleon Electronic Music Festival, the World Saxophone Congress, Fresh Inc, Nief-Norf, the U.S. Navy Band’s International Saxophone Symposium, and the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival. She has worked with artists such as the JACK Quartet, the mdi ensemble, The Crossing, LIGAMENT, Carrie Koffman, Don-Paul Kahl, and the Mammoth Trio.

Shirley’s honors include selection in the 2024 and 2026 IAWM Annual Concert Calls for Scores, selection in SOLI Chamber Ensemble’s 30x30x30 Project, a 2022 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award and selection as a Finalist in 2021 and 2026, 2nd place in the 2021 UMKC Chamber Music Composition Competition, and a 2020 Mu Phi Epsilon National Undergraduate Research Award for her research on the music and pedagogy of Gabriel Fauré.

Shirley obtained her BM from the University of Indianapolis, where she studied with John Berners, her MM from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where she studied with Chen Yi, Yotam Haber, and Zhou Long, and currently studies composition at the University of Iowa with David Gompper.