Hartt Composition welcomes one of its own into Composers' Seminar with chair, Dr. Gilda Lyons, presenting on her career and recent works on Wednesday, Jan. 28 at 5 p.m.
"Composer-vocalist Gilda Lyons (b. 1975) creates works that sing from the inside out, vigorously redefining what constitutes composition and performance through the lens of vocalism. Whether instrumental, electronic, theater or concert-based, her resolutely pan-historic creative and physical voices are uncompromising in their emotional honesty, the systematic rejection of orthodoxy, and a fierce dedication to connecting by fluently combining in her music everything from vocal howls to shape note singing, Renaissance polyphony to modernist extended techniques, Celtic ballads to art pop, overtone singing to soaring operatic melodies.
Social activism and her Nicaraguan roots underpin much of her work, from the environmentalism of her “powerfully effective” (Pittsburgh Stage Magazine) mainstage opera A New Kind of Fallout for the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh; to composing and premiering (as performer and conductor) her upcoming (2026/2027) searing political chamber operafilm Corazón de Esperanza for Esperanza Arts Center with the Dalí Quartet and percussionist Ben Toth; to Cenizas, a meditation on “the ashes left when rights and time and possessions and lives are stolen,” commissioned by the Mid-American Conference Band Directors Association, premiered at the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA) National Conference, and recorded by the Hartt Wind Ensemble. la flor más linda for wind ensemble, composed as a direct response to the political unrest in Nicaragua, has already been taken up by over thirty bands and premiered in both an orchestral version under the baton of Miguel Harth Bedoya and at the North American Saxophone Alliance Region 8 Conference in a version for saxophone ensemble (Carrie Koffman/Hartt Saxophone Ensemble). Musica Viva NY’s debut recording of Momotombo (Naxos) was described in Gramophone as an “irresistible a cappella paean … five movements of vivacious rhythmic activity.” Other recordings of her works are on AMP, Clarion, GPR, New Dynamic, New Focus, Parma, Roven, and Yarlung including Laura Strickling’s Grammy® nominated Songs of Lament and Praise, and releases by Quince, Entelechron, Sing for Hope, Gail Levinsky, and the Makrokosmos 50 Project (Nic Gerpe)."
Composers' Seminar takes place every Wednesday from 5 p.m. to 6:20 p.m., in the Bliss Music Room, located on the second floor of the Alfred C. Fuller Music Center.