By: Rita Trenti / rita@creeksidebooks.com

Creekside Books & Coffee plans a special “Meet the Composer at Creekside!”event featuring 2011 Skaneateles Festival musician and award-winning composer Stacy Garrop at the Coffeehouse on Friday, May 20th at 7:30 pm.

This early preview of one of the Skaneateles Festival’s musicians gives Ms. Garrop the chance to show what a composer does and what inspires her work. Stacy Garrop centers her music on dramatic and direct narrative. She believes in the sharing of stories as a defining element of our humanity and many of her works draw directly upon poets and writers for source material.

You’ll hear recordings of some of her works as well as find out more about what brings her to town: the Skaneateles Festival’s local composition project (Hyperscore) that teaches ordinary people with no musical background or training to write short pieces of music.

Composer Stacy Garrop’s works have been performed at orchestras throughout the country, including the Albany, Charleston, Detroit, Omaha and Illinois symphonies, as well as the National Repertory Orchestra, New England Philharmonic and an array of chamber ensembles: the Artaria String Quartet, Enso Quartet, Lincoln Trio, Orion Ensemble, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Seattle New Music Ensemble and the Society for New Music.

Stacy has received multiple awards and grants from the San Francisco Song Festival; Detroit Symphony Orchestra; Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble; Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the New England Philharmonic. During the 2009-2010 Season she was in residence with the Albany Symphony Orchestra. She is an Associate Professor in Composition at the Chicago College of Performing Arts of Roosevelt University.