The Kotas Project

Jennifer Higdon was born on December 31, 1962 in Brooklyn, New York. Higdon studied flute performance at Bowling Green State University under the tutelage of Judith Bentley. While at Bowling Green Higdon wrote her first composition entitled Night Creatures for flute and piano. After graduating Higdon attended the Curtis Institute of Music where she earned an Artist Diploma under the instruction of David Loeb. Higdon went on to earn a Masters and Doctorate in Composition from the University of Pennsylvania under George Crumb. She currently teaches at Curtis and holds the Milton L. Rock Chair in Compositional Studies.

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Jennifer Higdon has been composer in residence with several profession orchestras including the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Green Bay Symphony, the Philadelphia Symphony, and the Fort Worth Symphony. Higdon has been commissioned by a long list of Orchestras, most notably the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, as well as chamber groups such as the Tokyo String Quartet, the Lark Quartet, Eighth Blackbird, and the President’s Own Marine Band. In 2016 Higdon became the first American to win the International Opera Award for Best World premiere for her opera Cold Mountain, this was also her first opera. In 2010 Higdon was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her Violin Concerto. Higdon has also won awards from various organizations including the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Pew Fellowship in the Arts, the Independence Foundation, the NEA, and the ASCAP. Higdon has als won two Grammys for Best COntemporary Classical Composition for her Percussion Concerto and her Violin Concerto.