Composer Nancy Galbraith is Professor of Composition at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Music. In a career that spans over three decades, her music has earned praise for its rich harmonic texture, rythmic vitality, emotional and spiritual depth, and wide range of expression.

 

Galbraithʼs symphonic works have enjoyed regular performances by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, including premieres led by Gennady Rozhdetsvensky and Mariss Jansons. Her De profundis ad lucem received its European premiere by the Limburg Symphony Orchestra in the Netherlands. Her Piano Concerto No. 1 was recorded by Keith Lockhart and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. In 2014, guest conductor Donald Runnicles will perform Euphonic Blues with the Pittsburgh Symphony.

Galbraithʼs works for wind ensembles have become standard repertoire for concert bands around the world and appear on numerous recordings by college and professional ensembles. Her most popular work for this genre, Danza de los Duendes, has been performed in over 100 concerts and appears on four recordings, most notably the North Texas Wind Symphonyʼs Klavier CD, Dream Catchers. In 2009, the Yale Concert Band featured Danza de los Duendes in its concert tour of Mexico. The composerʼs new work for flute choirs, Streaming Green, has been featured in numerous performances since its premiere in 2009, including a White House East Wing Christmas recital. Most recently, her Febris Ver (Spring Fever) was premiered at the College Band Directors National Associotionʼs 2012 Eastern Division Conference.

Galbraith has also produced a substantial body of major choral works, beginning with commissions from the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh for Missa Mysteriorum, and Requiem—a landmark achievement that was declared "a masterpiece" by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. These successes have led to commissions from the NEA, the Providence Singers (Rhode Island), Lyrica Chamber Music (New Jersey), the Pittsburgh Camerata, and others. The Harvard Glee Club and Radcliffe Choral Society recently commissioned the composer to write a new work for their 2013 Christmas program.

Chamber Music hailed Galbraithʼs Rhythms and Rituals as "the kind of piece that should be the ʼsound of classical musicʼ on todayʼs radio stations." Her chamber works have been performed by members of the New York Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and by Mexicoʼs Sinfonietta Ventus, Trío Neos, and Cuarteto Latinoamericano. Galbraithʼs Sonata for Bassoon and Piano was one of the required works for the Meg Quigley Vivaldi Competition at the 2007 International Double Reed Convention, and is a standard repertoire work for American bassoonists.

Galbraith has composed four electroacoustic chamber works for world renowned Baroque flutist Stephen Schultz including two collaborations with Pittsburghʼs electric cello trio, Cello Fury. Traverso Mistico, Other Sun, and Night Train were released on a Centaur Records CD titled Nancy Galbraith: Other Sun in 2011. Shultz recently premiered Effervescent Air with the Carnegie Mellon Baroque Ensemble.

Her first ballet, Whispers of Light, was premiered this year in two concerts presented by Bodiography Contemporary Ballet in Pittsburgh. The concerts highlighted the work of the Highmark Caring Place, which provides services to children and their families who are victims of tragic loss.

The composer is also an accomplished pianist and organist, and has written a number of works for those instruments. Her Piano Sonata No. 1 is a familiar component of contemporary piano literature and can be found on three recordings, including Albany Recordsʼ Nancy Galbraith: Atacama, with a performance by Pittsburgh Symphony principal Patricia Prattis Jennings. Sanjung Lee will premiere Three Preludes for Piano in Seoul in 2013.

Concurrent with here concert music career, Galbraith has enjoyed great success as a composer of sacred music. Drawing upon her experience as music director and organist at Christ Lutheran Church in Pittsburgh, she has produced a sizable collection of vocal and organ liturgical music. A performance of her anthem In Unity and Love in an annual event at the Gettysburg Lutheran Theological Seminaryʼs graduation ceremonies.

Born into a musical family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on January 27, 1951, Nancy Galbraith began piano studies at age four. She later earned degrees in composition from Ohio University (BA) and West Virginia University (MA), and continued studies in composition, piano, and organ at Carnegie Mellon University. Her works are published by Subito Music in Verona, New Jersey.