SCHRAMM, BETSY (b. 1964)

Betsy Schramm (born 1964) is an American composer who is based in Boston, Massachusetts. She grew up in a house filled with music. Her mother played the piano, organ, and sang. Her father had a classical record collection which he often played. Every Sunday in church she was drawn to the Bach organ preludes. She studied piano from a young age, sang in church choirs, and took up percussion as a teen. She was drawn to becoming a composer by the music that was always playing in her head.

 

Betsy Schramm’s most influential music experiences at the beginning of her career were a Fulbright Scholarship in Music Composition for study in London in 1990-91 and attending the Eastman School of Music in New York. In 1993, she earned the Ph.D. in Composition at Eastman where she taught composition and orchestration. 

 

Betsy Schramm’s music has been cited for its “visionary quality” and “impressive lyricism” and has been called “expansive, daring, and unpredictable” (Boston Globe, Buffalo News, Boston Herald). Her music has received numerous professional awards and has been played and broadcast in the U.S. and Europe, in London, New York City, and Boston. 

 

In 2015, Mark Records released Arrays of Light, an 80-minute recording of her brass music featuring trumpeter Mark Ponzo. Sheet music for this entire recording is available from Alliance Publications, Inc. here.

 

Betsy Schramm has enjoyed presenting masterclasses at Harvard University, Boston University, Boston Conservatory, New England Conservatory, Boston College and working with students of all ages in the local public schools. She lives in Boston with her two children.

 

Compositionally, Betsy Schramm has written music in many genres: large and small orchestral and wind ensembles, song cycles with large and small chamber ensembles, string quartets, choral works, a children’s opera, and many chamber works including solo trumpet, flugelhorn, cello, violin, harpsichord as well as trumpet duets, trumpet and percussion duets, and brass quintets.

 

Performances of her music in the USA and Europe have merited much praise, rave reviews from music critics and continued commissions, eg. a Barlow Endowment for Boston Musica Viva; Massachusetts Cultural Council grants for Words of War/Letters of War and Exquisitries; Lontano/ London Arts Board commission for Sedna, premiered in London; The Quickening of a Summer’s Morn, premiered by the Eastman Wind Ensemble. We the People: An American Journey was commissioned for a 2016-17 premiere by The Eastman Wind Ensemble and conductor, Mark Davis Scatterday.

 

See her website online www.betsyschramm.net for a full bio and catalog listing of her works.