Biography
Composer Stacy Garrop creates pieces across numerous musical styles, linked throughout much of her catalog by a pronounced emphasis on narrative. Commissions from prominent American ensembles and ensembles have supported her catalog extensively.
Garrop entered the world on December 5, 1969, in Columbus, Ohio. Her mother performed enthusiastically in musical theater, taking her to see West Side Story. Raised in California, she participated in school choral singing and performed on alto saxophone within her high school band. Exposure to the typical pop repertoire common among girls her age arrived only in her late preteens. At the University of Michigan she completed a bachelor’s degree in composition while studying French horn and cello to strengthen her command of orchestration. She then earned a master’s degree in music from the University of Chicago in 1995 and later received a doctorate from Indiana University Bloomington. In 2000 Garrop joined the faculty of Roosevelt University in Chicago, remaining until 2016, when she stepped down to devote herself entirely to composition.
On her website Garrop stated that her music “is centered on dramatic and lyrical storytelling.” This quality appears even within abstract genres such as the string quartet; her String Quartet No. 2 (“Demons and Angels”) drew upon the altered personality of an ex-boyfriend following the end of their relationship and his subsequent commission of multiple murders. Although that piece attracted widespread attention, comparable notice greeted Forging Steel, commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra; My Dearest Ruth for soprano and piano, setting a text by Martin Ginsburg about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg; and Glorious Mahalia, inspired by gospel singer Mahalia Jackson and commissioned by the Kronos Quartet. Garrop has secured an unusually large number of commissions from American orchestras, chamber groups, and choruses while also winning orchestral competitions organized by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and the Omaha Symphony, among others. Her orchestral scores have reached the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, among many additional ensembles, while wind-ensemble commissions have come from both the U.S. Marine Band and the U.S. Navy Band. By the mid-2020s more than twenty-five of her compositions had been recorded, among them the oratorio Terra Nostra, released on a Cedille album in 2024.
Garrop entered the world on December 5, 1969, in Columbus, Ohio. Her mother performed enthusiastically in musical theater, taking her to see West Side Story. Raised in California, she participated in school choral singing and performed on alto saxophone within her high school band. Exposure to the typical pop repertoire common among girls her age arrived only in her late preteens. At the University of Michigan she completed a bachelor’s degree in composition while studying French horn and cello to strengthen her command of orchestration. She then earned a master’s degree in music from the University of Chicago in 1995 and later received a doctorate from Indiana University Bloomington. In 2000 Garrop joined the faculty of Roosevelt University in Chicago, remaining until 2016, when she stepped down to devote herself entirely to composition.
On her website Garrop stated that her music “is centered on dramatic and lyrical storytelling.” This quality appears even within abstract genres such as the string quartet; her String Quartet No. 2 (“Demons and Angels”) drew upon the altered personality of an ex-boyfriend following the end of their relationship and his subsequent commission of multiple murders. Although that piece attracted widespread attention, comparable notice greeted Forging Steel, commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra; My Dearest Ruth for soprano and piano, setting a text by Martin Ginsburg about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg; and Glorious Mahalia, inspired by gospel singer Mahalia Jackson and commissioned by the Kronos Quartet. Garrop has secured an unusually large number of commissions from American orchestras, chamber groups, and choruses while also winning orchestral competitions organized by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and the Omaha Symphony, among others. Her orchestral scores have reached the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, among many additional ensembles, while wind-ensemble commissions have come from both the U.S. Marine Band and the U.S. Navy Band. By the mid-2020s more than twenty-five of her compositions had been recorded, among them the oratorio Terra Nostra, released on a Cedille album in 2024.