Bernadette Speach
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Name
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Bernadette Speach
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Bio
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Bernadette Speach is a musician first, but throughout her life, the pianist and composer has found herself taking on the role of educator. Over a more than 40-year career that started as a Sister of Saint Joseph of Carondelet and evolved into arts administrator and college professor, Speach has instilled in countless others the appreciation and passion for music that drives her distinctive sound.
The Syracuse, New York, native earned a bachelor’s degree in music education from The College of Saint Rose. She studied in Italy and at Columbia University before landing under the tutelage of Morton Feldman at SUNY Buffalo. Studying alongside composers Lejaren Hiller and Leo Smit, she earned master’s and doctoral degrees in music composition.
Her work has been commissioned for numerous prestigious projects, including In and Out of Love, a work inspired by Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, for the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center in 2011. The resulting recording by Anthony de Mare for the ECM label earned a Grammy Award for producer Judith Sherman as Classical Producer of the Year. Other commissions include works for the iEAR Studios/Department of the Arts/ Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1989); National Endowment of the Arts (1992); Minnesota Composers Forum (1992); New York State Council on the Arts (1992); the Manhattan Neighborhood Network/The Kitchen Video Workshop (1995-96); percussionist Ricardo Souza (2004); and soprano Lauralyn Kolb (2005).
She received a fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts (1998-99); grants and awards from Margaret Fairbank Jory Copying Assistance Program (1989 and 1997), Arts Midwest (1993) and Meet the Composer (1985-01); and served as composer-in-residence at Brooklyn College’s Electracoustic Studio (2002). She was one of eight composers selected as a recipient of the Opera America 2023 Discovery Grants from its Opera Grants for Women Composers program, made possible with the generosity of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.
In and Out of Love