Photo by Rachel Banai
Marilyn Bliss
Inspired by the beauty of nature, world culture, art, and literature, the music of Marilyn Bliss brings a breath of fresh air into any concert program. Her inspirations range from the paintings of Morris Louis and Piero di Cosimo, to Hindu, Native American, Greek, Chinese, Afghan, Celtic, French, German, and British literature and myths, to natural phenomena such as the aurora borealis and the flights of birds. A flutist herself, she has had special renown as the composer of works for the flute family, including piccolo, alto flute, Native American flute, and flute ensembles. Her many awards include a Charles Ives Prize from the American Academy/Institute of Arts and Letters, an ASCAP Young Composers Award, Newly Published Flute Music awards from the National Flute Association, fellowships from Tanglewood, the Composers Conference, and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and commissions from the Azure Ensemble, Haydn-Mozart Chamber Orchestra, the Philadelphia Art Alliance, the Powell Quartet, the Englewinds Ensemble, the flutists James Zellers, James Pellerite, and Nina Assimakopoulos, and the National Flute Association. Several of Ms. Bliss’s recent scores have featured the Native American flute, both as a solo instrument and in combination with other instruments. Ms. Bliss is currently President of New York Women Composers. Her music has been performed throughout the world; she has been a guest of the SS. Cyril and Methodius Foundation in Sofia, Bulgaria, and of the Fechin Institute in Taos, New Mexico. Her works have also recently been performed in Spain, Germany, the UK, Russia, Italy, and Armenia, a country which she has visited and received performances several times. Ms. Bliss is published by the American Composers Alliance and Mostly Marimba Productions.
A bit about myself…
Growing up in Lamont, a very small town in Iowa, my first musical influence was my mother, who played piano for the church and other events and could somehow transpose a hymn or finagle a cadence on cue, which seemed magical to me. My older sister Elaine played the flute, and soon I got my own flute, as well as taking piano lessons, and later, voice lessons — I studied flute in Cedar Rapids with Julia Denecke (a student of Barrėre) and voice with Robert Ray. I started composing music in my early teens, and wrote a piece for concert band while in high school. Choosing Coe College as my undergraduate school, I completed a triple major in music composition, flute, and voice, studying composition with Jerry Owen and flute with Jan Boland Dockendorff. As a junior, I took a semester off-campus studying performing arts in New York, where I began studies with the renowned flutist-composer Harvey Sollberger, who was also a Northeast Iowa native. After graduating from Coe College, I began graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where I studied composition with George Crumb, George Rochberg, and Richard Wernick. In 1978, I was a Margaret Lee Crofts Fellow at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, studying composition with Jacob Druckman.
After completing my graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania, I moved to New York, where I attended courses at the Graduate School of the City University of New York. During this time, I co-founded the Amara Ensemble, a chamber music group that performed concerts in the New York City area for several years. I also did editorial work for publishers of scholarly and educational books on music such as W.W. Norton, Music Sales, and Hal Leonard, and created the indexes for the ten-volume Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. I also served as production editor at Omega Record Group during the time of its re-engineering and reissuing the classic Vanguard and Everest Records catalogues. I live in Jackson Heights, Queens, a neighborhood so diverse that within walking distance you can visit nearly anywhere in the world if you bring along your imagination.
Latest News
For news on upcoming performances, recordings, and activities, follow Marilyn’s social media accounts.
