Elizabeth R. Austin

Born in Baltimore in 1938, Elizabeth R. Austin has taught composition and theory in Hartford, Connecticut. Her association with The Hartt School (University of Hartford), where she earned an M.M., included the establishment of a faculty/student exchange with the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik Heidelberg-Mannheim. During her Ph.D. studies (University of Connecticut), she won First Prize in the Lipscomb Electronic Music Competition (Nashville).

Other awards have included a Connecticut Commission on the Arts grant, First Prize in the IAWM’s 1998 Miriam Gideon Competition, a Rockefeller Foundation grant, and an American Music Center grant.

Performed in Europe, Scandinavia, South Africa, as well as in The United States and the Caribbean, Elizabeth Austin’s music has been received with distinction and has been broadcast worldwide, especially featured on Germany’s Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk. GEDOK Mannheim (Germany) has sponsored many portrait concerts of her music. She serves as organist/choir director at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Windham Center. Dr. Austin is also on the Alumni Board of The Walden School (for young composers), New Hampshire.

Published by Arsis Press, Tonger Musikverlag, and Peer Musik, and recorded on the Capstone and Leonarda labels, Elizabeth Austin is also represented on the 1994 Society of Composers CD and Journal (Vol. 20). Her scores are available through the American Composers Alliance. Dr. Teresa Crane, U. Illinois, wrote a dissertation on her song cycles (2007), and Karianne Westfal-Larsen discussed her songs in her Master’s thesis (Norway, 2007). Writings on Austin’s life and music, based on a doctoral dissertation by Dr. Michael Slayton, will be part of a forthcoming book on contemporary women composers.