Stacy Garrop

Stacy Garrop (b. 1969) is an acclaimed American composer whose music is characterized by its dramatic and lyrical storytelling.1 She shares narratives—ranging from simple and beautiful to complicated and dark—by taking audiences on compelling sonic journeys.1 Garrop currently works as a full-time freelance composer based in the Chicago area, building a wide-ranging catalog of works for orchestra, opera, choir, chamber ensembles, and solo instruments.2,3


Early Life and Development as a Composer

Stacy Garrop was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, specifically growing up in Walnut Creek, California.4 Despite her mother's love for musical theater, Garrop reports that not much music was played in the house during her childhood, and her very first musical experience was seeing West Side Story.5 She did not discover the radio until around 1982.5


Her path to becoming a composer began relatively late, around age 15, when she was in an AP Music Theory class.4 Her teacher gave an assignment to "Go home and write a piece of music," a task that proved pivotal: Garrop notes that if not for that assignment, she would not have found composing.4 After this discovery, she "just couldn't stop composing" and, within about six months, found a Bay Area composer to study with during the school year and attended the Walden School for Young Composers, a summer program, for two summers.4


Garrop pursued her formal education in music composition, receiving her Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (1988–1992), her Master of Arts degree from the University of Chicago (1995), and her Doctor of Music degree from Indiana University-Bloomington.3,6 She has mentioned that coming from a performance-oriented school like Michigan to the highly theoretical environment of the University of Chicago was an intense experience.6 A key development in her career was her subsequent decision to seek doctoral programs with an ethnomusicology component, which became her minor at Indiana University.6 Later in her career, she taught composition and orchestration full-time at Roosevelt University from 2000 to 2016 before launching her freelance career.3


Interesting Facts and Artistic Approach

Garrop’s compositional process is strongly rooted in narrative and visualization. She has stated that she is both a visual and auditory person, using the visual part to see a story in her head "like a movie" to guide the shape of the piece.7 This visual approach extends to her use of charts to graph out the tension level of a piece (tension on the y-axis, time on the x-axis).7 She also prefers to begin the writing process with pencil and paper to slow herself down and ensure all the connections she wants to make are fully explored, only later moving to a computer for orchestration.5


Her desire to tell a story through music is a defining element of her work.1 Her subject matter has been wide-ranging, including works inspired by figures like Medusa, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.7,8 She often incorporates external narratives; for instance, her String Quartet No. 2 (Demons and Angels) was written about an intense, personal dramatic story.5 Her work is frequently described as having a cinematic quality—reviewers have often noted that her music sounds like "movie music, but then they qualify it: 'in the best sense of the word'".5


Noted Works

Stacy Garrop's music has been widely commissioned and performed by groups such as the Kronos Quartet, Chanticleer, and numerous symphony orchestras. Her notable works across various genres include: 9,10


Footnotes and References

Resources


STACY GARROP Official Website (Home)  https://www.garrop.com/page/

STACY GARROP Biography  https://www.garrop.com/About/Biography/

STACY GARROP Featured Works  http://garrop.com/Catalog/Featured_Works/

The University of Chicago Magazine Article  https://magazine.uchicago.edu/0812/features/glimpses.shtml

New Music USA Article  https://newmusicusa.org/nmbx/stacy-garrop-with-a-story-to-tell/

Cedille Records Artist Page  https://www.cedillerecords.org/artists/stacy-garrop/