Andrea Ramsey

Dr. Andrea Ramsey enjoys an international presence as a composer, conductor, scholar, and music educator. Her teaching experiences range from work with adolescent and children's voices to high school and collegiate voices. She enjoys regular opportunities to conduct all-state and divisional level honor choirs, festival events at Carnegie Hall, and serves as a principal conductor for the Pacific International Young Women's Choral Festival in Eugene, Oregon. Before leaping into full time composing and guest conducting, Andrea held positions in music education and conducting at The Ohio State University and the University of Colorado, respectively. An ASCAPlus award-winning composer, Andrea believes strongly in the creation of new works. Her compositions are available with traditional publishers and also through MusicSpoke, a digital sheet music marketplace. She enjoys residency collaborations with ensembles and festival choirs, some of which have included: the Allegro Choirs of Kansas City, Ithaca College, and the Crescent City Choral Festival in New Orleans. As a scholar, she has presented for state, divisional, and national conventions of the American Choral Directors Association, the 6th Annual Symposium on Sociology in Music Education, as well as The Phenomenon Singing Symposium in St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada. She has co-authored articles published in the Choral Journal, as well as the Journal of Research in Music Education. A native of Arkansas, she has experienced in her own life the power of music to provide a sense of community, better understanding of our humanity, and rich opportunities for self-discovery.

Describing one's own compositional voice is difficult. I like what Alberto Grau has to say: "Everything in life changes. Your work as a composer should evolve in the same line as you evolve as a human being." I think my compositional voice is changing even now, and I know it has changed from the many years ago when I was first starting to write. I aspire to avoid being neatly categorized as "that composer who writes _____ kind of music." There are so many different styles of music I want to explore! I know my ear gravitates toward certain colors, melodic patterns, and rhythmic ideas. I'm a sucker for good melody, suspensions, and the playfulness of mixed meter. I like what I like and try to embrace that there are certainly similarities among my works and that those similarities are natural and to be expected. Having said that, I think my experience as a teacher factors into my work-- I think about singable lines, age-appropriate tessitura, and the joy of writing something that is both accessible and musically satisfying. I try to compose works that are honest--works that connect with singers and audiences from a place of beauty, story-telling, emotional depth, and/or personal relevance.