About Pamela J. Marshall

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Short biography for concert programs

Pamela J. Marshall (b.1954) studied composition at Eastman and Yale Schools of Music. She has written for the International Horn Society, South Beach Chamber Ensemble, Master Singers of Lexington, MA, Green Mountain Youth Symphony, Assabet Valley Mastersingers, and several Spindrift Commissioning Guild projects.

Pamela plays horn in local orchestras, leads improv workshops, records chamber music and nature soundscapes, and does web design and online marketing consulting (prosperontheweb.com) in Lexington, MA. Ravello Records released a CD of her chamber music titled “Through the Mist” in 2015. Find her music at www.spindrift.com and sign up for her free e-course “20 Improv Ideas for Daily Music Practice”.

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Long biography

Pamela J. Marshall (b.1954) studied at Eastman and Yale and has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony. She has written for chamber ensembles, chorus, orchestra, synthesizers, and mandolin. Her commissions include "Walden at Evening" for the International Horn Society at their Memphis symposium in 2013, South Beach Chamber Ensemble in Miami, Mastersingers of Lexington, MA, Green Mountain Youth Symphony, organist Carson Cooman, Assabet Valley Mastersingers, Unitarian choirs in Massachusetts and Minnesota, the Fisher Foundation, Axiom Duo, Trio Arundel, mandolinist Neil Gladd, and DanceArt. She publishes her music at www.spindrift.com.

At Eastman and Yale, she studied composition, horn, conducting, and electronic music. Her teachers included Jacob Druckman, Joseph Schwantner, Betsy Jolas, Warren Benson, and Samuel Adler in composition; horn studies with Verne Reynolds, Paul Ingraham, Charles Kavalovski, and Jean Rife; and conducting with Arthur Weisberg.

She believes firmly in the benefits and fun of improvisation and encourages classical musicians to try it. You can sign up for her "20 Improv Ideas for Daily Music Practice”, delivered as emails, at www.spindrift.com. She has led improv workshops for classical musicians at the Northeast Horn Workshop and the Lexington Music Club. With Carroll Ann Bottino, a piano teacher in Lexington, MA, she has developed a workshop curriculum that introduces composition and improvisation to music students.

Ravello Records released a CD of her chamber music titled “Through the Mist” in 2015. Her mandolin music is recorded on Plucked String and Uncommon Strings CDs and chamber music is recorded on the Beauport Classical, Clique Track and Living Artist labels. Her label Nachursona has released two CDs of her nature soundscapes.

Her Christmas arrangements for orchestra “Traditional Christmas” and “Three Appalachian Carols” have been played throughout the United States.

From 1998 to 2005, she was a member of Just In Time Composers and Players, a Boston-area collaborative of composers and performers that presented several concert seasons of beautifully accessible new music. Just In Time presented Ms. Marshall’s chamber music, songs, and excerpts of her opera-in-progress "Melete’s Quest". She was the group’s director for the 1999-2001 seasons.

Since 2005, the Spindrift Commissioning Guild, with contributions from friends and patrons, has supported several projects for new chamber music and recordings. A major project has been Art-Poem-Music, a collaboration with visual artist Sirarpi Heghinian Walzer and poet Elizabeth Kirschner. She has also written a series of poetry-inspired solos for various instruments.

Pamela plays horn in the Concord Orchestra and Carlisle Chamber Orchestra. She has written music software and developed sounds for Kurzweil synthesizers and written technical documentation about software programming tools. She leads improvisation workshops, records concerts and nature soundscapes, and does photography (www.honeycreeper.com) and web design (prosperontheweb.com).

Updated January 2021