WFIU's featured contemporary composer for the month of October is Nancy Galbraith.
A member of the music faculty at Carnegie Mellon University in her native Pittsburgh, Galbraith holds degrees from Ohio University and West Virginia University. Growing up, she studied piano, organ, and clarinet. This diverse performance background informed her career as a composer, which includes works for orchestra, wind ensemble, piano, and organ, and everything from sacred to electroacoustic music.
Galbraith's orchestral compositions have received premieres by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under notable conductors, including Gennady Rozhdetsvensky and Mariss Janssons. Keith Lockhart of the Boston Pops conducted the premiere of Galbraith's Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. Internationally, her music has been performed in Argentina by the Orquesta Sinfónica de Tucumán and the Limburgs Symfonie Orkest in the Netherlands.
Many of Galbraith's compositions are sacred and liturgical vocal works. 2006 saw the premiere of her Novena, a commissioned work which was part of a benefit concert in Chicago to raise funds for the Beit Benedict Interfaith Peace Academy in Jerusalem. The album Nancy Galbraith: Sacred Songs and Interludes was released by the Pittsburgh Camerata in 2007. In 2010, a commission from the Order of Saint Benedict led to the performance of Galbraith's Lumen Christi at the St. Procopius Abbey in Lisle, Illinois. Recordings of Galbraith's music are available on the Centaur, Albany, Capstone, and ÉLAN labels.
WFIU will feature compositions by Nancy Galbraith throughout the month of October, including on the contemporary music program Horizons in Music with David Wood, Tuesday evenings at 10 o'clock.