Noted for his “trademark wit and poignancy” (Oxford Lieder Festival), sAmerican composer Ross S. Griffey writes music in all genres, with a particular emphasis on art song. He is the recipient of several national and regional awards, including two ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards and Special Distinction for the Rudolf Nissim Prize, and his works have been programmed by ensembles including the Secret Opera, Ensemble Signal, and Juventas New Music Ensemble. Recent and notable performances of his work include the premiere of World of Ice by Nicholas Mogg and Christopher Glynn at the 2019 Oxford Lieder Festival and the premiere of Night Music by Joel Sachs and the New Juilliard Ensemble at Alice Tully Hall the same year.
A native of Houston, Texas, Mr. Griffey studied first at Rice University, with composers Pierre Jalbert and Shih-Hui Chen, and later at the Juilliard School, with composers Samuel Adler and Robert Beaser. Mr. Griffey also earned his doctorate from Juilliard, authoring an award-winning dissertation on support for composers by the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2018, Mr. Griffey served as the Albi Rosenthal Visiting Fellow in Music at the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries, where he researched nineteenth-century Arctic exploration in preparation for writing his song cycle World of Ice. Mr. Griffey currently lives and works in Houston.
Ross S. Griffey, Composer 