Amy Scurria holds degrees in Music Composition from the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University (Masters) and The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston, TX (Bachelors). She has also studied composition at La Schola Cantorum in Paris, France with Samuel Adler, Philip Lasser and Narcis Bonet, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Westminster Choir College summer composition program. Having had her first commission in 1994, Ms. Scurria has since been commissioned by such groups as the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestra (co-commission), the Vermont Youth Orchestra, Shepherd College in WV, SHE (an a cappella women's choir in NYC dedicated to raising money for NYC charities through music), Youth Pro Musica, and the Bryn Mawr (PA) Presbyterian Church, as well as others.
Her music has been heard throughout the United States, Brazil (heard by
audiences of over 10,000), and England. Ms. Scurria grew up singing in church choirs and with madrigal groups, and began teaching herself piano, as well as the basics of writing music, by the age of eight. Her serious study of piano began at eleven and, soon after, she had written several pieces for solo piano. By seventeen, she had received several piano performance awards and was frequently performing her works throughout the state of VA.
Her honors and awards have included three consecutive ASCAP Plus Awards, the 1998 Winner of the Haddonfield Young Composers' Competition and 1991 Winner of the Northern Virginia Composition Competition. Her music has been aired on WRTI in Philadelphia featuring We Are Met at Gettysburg" (commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestra), MPR Radio in Minneapolis, MN, WCVT, Burlington, VT, WPRB, Princeton, NJ, and Kohlrobi Classics, 90.7 FM, CA. Internet features have included New Music Box, Piano Lane, and Classical Net Review. Future publications will include the Topical Guide to Classical Music published by Scarecrow Press and A Guide to Piano Music by Women Composers, Volume II published by Greenwood Publishing. Ms. Scurria is affiliated with ASCAP, Theodore Presser Company, Adamo Press, CPCC, American Composers Forum, and NACUSA.
Ms. Scurria believes that "Music is a powerful and unusual language that, when spoken well, can reach the deepest part of the human spirit."
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