Margaret Collins Stoop is an award winning composer whose
works have been performed throughout Europe and the United States and
include a commission by the “Door Eendracht Sterk” Fanfare Band of
Hedel, The Netherlands, to commemorate the band’s one hundred year
anniversary. In 2007 her song for treble chorus, flute and piano,
"maggie and milly and molly and may," was awarded first prize in the
Berkshire Children's Chorus Composition Competition. A
recipient of the 2006 Masterworks Prize, "The Shepherd and the Night
Sky" for soprano solo, mixed chorus, flute and piano was recorded by
members of the Kiev Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chamber Choir Kyiv.
In the spring of 2004, the Smith College Chamber Singers performed her
piece for women's a cappella
chorus, "Hestia's Loom," while on tour in Budapest and Prague. The text
for this work was written by an Adesso member, Susan S. Fulljames. In 2002 “Prayer for Peace," for a cappella
mixed chorus, was awarded the distinction of honors by the Waging Peace
Through Singing Competition. Meg's string quintet, “Before and After
the End,” was a finalist in the 1998 American Romanian Team for the
Arts competition, and it was performed in Romania by members of the
Black Sea Philharmonic.
In March of 2011 Meg was guest conductor of the Fairfield County Chorale as they performed her work, "Gnosis," for mixed chorus and vibraphone and marimba.
Meg began her formal music
education at the age of sixteen with a scholarship to the preparatory
division of the Mannes College of Music. In 1989, she graduated from
Smith College cum laude, with the special distinction of High Honors in Music for her thesis, On the Horizontal and Vertical in Selected Works by Schoenberg and Webern.
In 1990 and 1991 she resided in Hong Kong, where she studied Chinese
flutes and folk music at the Yuet Wah Music School, and western flute
privately with Timothy Wilson, of the Hong Kong Philharmonic. In 1998,
Meg received her master's degree in music composition from the Aaron
Copland School of Music of the City University of New York, where she
studied under Thea Musgrave.
A lifelong chorister, Meg
is the founding director of the Adesso Choral Society and she is a
member of the Fairfield County Chorale.
She teaches flute, piano,
theory and composition at Westport Music Center, Westport School of
Music, and Ridgefield Adult Education, as well as maintaining a private studio in her home in Ridgefield, CT.
Meg has served on the Ridgefield Arts Council and is president of Connecticut Composers, Inc.
For Meg's complete music vitae, click here.
