Compose Like A Girl

Compose Like A Girl Compose Like a Girl amplifies female-identifying composers & works toward more equitable programming.

“How do composers build sustainable careers, ensuring their work aligns with their financial goals and personal well-bei...
06/26/2025

“How do composers build sustainable careers, ensuring their work aligns with their financial goals and personal well-being? Composing a Living is a practical and empowering guide for composers navigating the intersection of music, money, and business.

Drawing on extensive industry experience and twenty-eight interviews with successful composers across genres, Brandon Elliott and Dale Trumbore offer comprehensive guidance on pricing work, negotiating contracts, understanding copyright, hiring a creative team, and diversifying income. This book demystifies financial strategies, legal essentials, and entrepreneurial thinking, equipping music creators with helpful tools to take control of their careers.

Whether you're just starting out or refining your business approach, Composing a Living provides real-world insights and proven strategies to help you thrive in today's music industry.”

Pre-order now by visiting: https://www.amazon.com/Composing-Living-Creators-Relationships-Business/dp/0197803474

Check out episode 2 of Season 1 of the Compose Like A Girl podcast wherever you stream your podcasts where Trumbore and Hagen discussed the pressure of proving ourselves, reclaiming space, and healing.

The Compose Like A Girl Choral Series seeks to empower composers who identify as women through mentorship, editorial dir...
06/19/2025

The Compose Like A Girl Choral Series seeks to empower composers who identify as women through mentorship, editorial direction, publication, and promotion.

Compose Like A Girl titles are selected by Jocelyn Hagen, published through JH Music, and distributed by Graphite Publishing. For many of these women, it is their first published piece!

You can support these composers, diversify your concerts, and push towards equality by programming music from the Compose Like A Girl Choral Series. Inviting the composer into the rehearsal process through a zoom or in-person workshop or Q & A session is an incredible experience for all involved.

Check out all of the works in the series now by visiting https://graphitepublishing.com/publisher/compose-like-a-girl/

Composers, Mari Esabel Valverde and Angélica Negrón will both be fellowship mentors for the 2025 Luna Composition Lab., ...
06/10/2025

Composers, Mari Esabel Valverde and Angélica Negrón will both be fellowship mentors for the 2025 Luna Composition Lab., a program which ""provides mentorship, education, and resources for young female, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming composers ages 13-18.

This June, Luna lab will kick off their 9th Annual Luna Lab Festival—a week of workshops, masterclasses, and performances, culminating in a stunning final concert at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Room, featuring world premieres by the six 2025 composer fellows and a few works by fellowship mentors, performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble.

FREE event — RSVP required!!

Tickets here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/new-moons-an-evening-of-world-premieres-tickets-1349022204729?aff=oddtdtcreator

More Festival Info here:
https://lunacompositionlab.org/2025-luna-lab-festival/?fbclid=IwY2xjawKLTXJleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETF4bGtpU0Qzc0U3YWhubUtKAR5WcugZiYVnjNtIJX8qYw6LyDd9NuqOos8IW6AvPFY7hptaUK7c7PKNuH7YOw_aem_mAdJ4lBjBu9-yCSWrkszyw

Angélica joined Jocelyn on the Compose Like A Girl Podcast on Season 1, check out her episode now wherever you stream your podcasts. Stay tuned to hear about our next season of guests! 👀🎶

In the chaos of our lives, we often neglect our needs for community, support and rest. In “The World is Too Big,” Grace ...
06/05/2025

In the chaos of our lives, we often neglect our needs for community, support and rest. In “The World is Too Big,” Grace Becker creates a warm embrace, reminding us to turn to one another for comfort and solace when things are difficult. The piece begins in unison, and then splits into two-part harmony, creating a wonderful work for developing choirs.

Face the world together with your treble choir now by programming Becker’s “The World is Too Big” for your next concert! This piece is available for purchase at graphitepublishing.com through the Compose Like A Girl Choral Series!

Welcome Nili Abrahamsson to the Compose Like A Girl Choral Series!!Abrahamsson is a composer and songwriter who began wr...
05/27/2025

Welcome Nili Abrahamsson to the Compose Like A Girl Choral Series!!

Abrahamsson is a composer and songwriter who began writing choral pieces when she started setting Hebrew texts for the choir she accompanies.

Longing for peace is a central idea in the Jewish mindset, and comes to life in this new arrangement of an ancient prayer song, “Oseh Shalom.”

Check out this energetic and hopeful work and listen to the performance by Altitude by searching the Compose Like A Girl Choral Series at graphitepublishing.com!

In collaboration with librettist Harrison David Rivers, comes a brand-new chamber opera by composer B.E. Boykin titled M...
05/20/2025

In collaboration with librettist Harrison David Rivers, comes a brand-new chamber opera by composer B.E. Boykin titled My Name is Florence, based on the life and career of Florence Price. This work is part of an exciting creative cohort through Minnesota Opera’s New Works Initiative. Follow Minnesota Opera for more information as these new works come to life! Premiering in the 2025-2026 season!

Visit https://mnopera.org/season/new-works-initiative/ for more details!

Speaking of collaboration in the arts, check out the 8th Episode of Season 1 of the Compose Like A Girl Podcast where Brittney joins Jocelyn to discuss the importance of finding mentorship among friends. Listen to this episode now wherever you stream your podcasts (https://composelikeagirl.podbean.com/e/be-boykin-finding-mentorship-among-friends/).

Congrats Brittney!

Compose Like A Girl composer, Suzy Johnson has been a choral conductor and music educator for more than 25 years. In 199...
05/15/2025

Compose Like A Girl composer, Suzy Johnson has been a choral conductor and music educator for more than 25 years. In 1996, she founded a children’s choir program, RAACHE Choirs, and continues to serve as artistic director and ensemble conductor of one of the four ensembles.

More recently, her passion to use music to tangibly improve people’s lives led her to join the team that founded Resounding Voices in Rochester, MN, a chorus for individuals with dementia or memory impairment and their support partners. Suzy is artistic director and conductor for this organization as well.

Drawing on her years of choral experience, Suzy recently discovered the delight and challenge of composing and arranging to create music that brings joy to singers of all ages and has had several of her songs performed by the two ensembles she leads.

In August of 2021 she received a Minnesota Music Creator Award from the American Composers Forum with funding from the Jerome Foundation and looks forward to future opportunities to create music for choirs and instrumentalists of all ages and backgrounds.

Check out Johnson’s work, “A Respectable Bird” for 2-part treble, 3-part treble, or 3-part mixed choir with Bb clarinet, and piano now by searching the Compose Like A Girl Choral Series at graphitepublishing.com!

Big news! Dr. Rosephanye Powell will be conducting Celebrate Us!, a concert of her SSAA works at Lincoln Center’s David ...
05/09/2025

Big news! Dr. Rosephanye Powell will be conducting Celebrate Us!, a concert of her SSAA works at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall on Nov 23, 2025!

The concert will showcase a powerful and uplifting program honoring the diverse experiences and voices of women from all walks of life featuring Powell’s works, Celebrate Us!, To Sit and Dream, and Still I Rise!

Powell will also be serving as composer-in-residence from Nov. 20-24 with Distinguished Concerts International New York (DCINY).

While you’re waiting for the November show, check out Season 1: Episode 8 of the Compose Like A Girl podcast (wherever you stream your podcasts) where Rosephanye joined Jocelyn to talk black music, storytelling, and music making as a service — it’s a must-listen!

Find more details about the Celebrate Us! by visiting: https://dciny.org/sunday-november-23-2025-powell/ #

05/01/2025

Say hello to Compose Like A Girl composer Sherry Blevins, the musical mind behind “When I Become an Old Woman” — a sassy, heartfelt, and empowering piece that celebrates aging with boldness, humor, and pride.

The piece features original poetry by the composer, Sherry Blevins, and also includes optional body percussion and staging to fully engage singers and audiences in the delightful humor of the piece.

Available now from the Compose Like A Girl Choral Series at graphitepublishing.com — spoiler: growing older has never sounded this fun!

04/22/2025

Poetry and singing are beautifully combined in Yeh’s “Peace.” Sustained slow notes in the lower voices portray peaceful waters while top voices take the tune. As the piece progresses, it expands into divided choirs of treble and low voices. This vocal orchestration is then combined to form a climactic SSAATTBB choir. The rhetorical peaceful waters of peace swells and rises in the climax, then recedes back to repeated word, “peace, peace…” for a calm conclusion.

Visit the Compose Like A Girl Choral Series now at graphitepublishing.com to learn more about Edna Yeh and her work “Peace”!

Tara Mack has sung in classical choirs for many years and is currently a soprano in the London Oriana Choir. In 2019, in...
04/17/2025

Tara Mack has sung in classical choirs for many years and is currently a soprano in the London Oriana Choir. In 2019, inspired by the Oriana’s five-year project to promote women composers, she began doing some choral composition of her own.

Since then she has been busy writing, studying and encouraging other choir members to write music. She has been performed and commissioned in both the US and the UK. In 2023 she was selected as a composition fellow for the Choral Arts Initiative’s PREMIERE|Project Festival, and she has been commissioned to write for the New York City Master Chorale and the Pembroke College Chapel Choir under the direction of Anna Lapwood.

By day Tara works for organizations committed to social justice. As the first Director of the Education for Liberation Network, she nurtured its growth into a national network that connected hundreds of teachers, activists, young people and parents reimagining education as a tool for the liberation of marginalized communities. She is currently Director of Programmes at Pembroke House, a community center in London.

Tara enjoys setting texts that reflect her political values, her African American culture and her experiences as a mother.

Check out Mack’s work “Good Morning” featured in the Compose Like A Girl Choral Series at graphitepublishing.com today!

04/09/2025

The Will of a Sailor by Lauren Biggs captures the nostalgia of remembering someone who’s passed on.

Available for SATB, SSAA, and TTBB a ca****la choir, “The Will of a Sailor” lingers on the word “Home,” ebbing and flowing like the tides. Inspired by Irish folk music, this piece captures the nostalgia of remembering someone who’s passed on. Gorgeous harmonies serve as a sendoff for those who have departed, and provide a refuge for those who grieve.

Text:

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

– Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

Listen to the full recording and purchase this piece today by visiting the Compose Like A Girl Choral Series at graphitepublishing.com!

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