Laura Clayton, composer, Hancock

Laura Clayton (b. in Lexington, Kentucky) began compositional studies with Darius Milhaud at the Aspen Music School in 1968. Having studied piano through her college years, she came to seriously composing in her early twenties when Gunther Schuller became the new president of the New England Conservatory (NEC). After receiving a Master of Music Degree in Composition from NEC, she traveled to Brazil where she lived, worked, and collaborated with a group of musicians. She created two prize-winning works while there. When she returned to this country, she continued her studies at the University of Michigan where she received her Doctorate of Musical Arts Degree in 1986.

In 1980, Clayton was one of two composers whose works were chosen to represent the United States at the International Rostrum of Compsers/UNESCO. That same year, she received the Charles Ives Award given by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. She has been a MacDowell Fellow; the Walter B. Hinrichsen Publishing Award, grants from the Jerome Foundation, University of Michigan, the Alice M. Ditson Fund and the Guggenheim Foundation. The American Composers Orchestra commissioned Terra Lucida, premiered in Carnegie Hall in 1988. Subsequently, it was included in a special radio series that was broacast on American Public Radio in 1992. A new composition, O Train Azul, for solo classical guitar, was recently commissioned by another Fellowship recipient, Christopher Kane.

The Fellowship Award will allow Laura Clayton to begin a new chamber work for soprano and guitar which she hopes to submit to the Aspen Music Festival. As part of her "report to the New Hampshire Community," she would give informal talks on the challenge and process of creating this new work at the Concord Community Music School.

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Last updated: March 31, 2008