Ann Loomis Silsbee

Ann Loomis Silsbee (21 July 1930 - 28 August 2003) was an American composer and poet who composed two operas, published three books of poetry, and received several awards, commissions, and fellowships. Silsbee was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Radcliffe College, a master’s in music from Syracuse University, and a doctor of musical arts in composition from Cornell University. She studied with Irving Fine, Earl George, and Karel Husa, and in Paris with unspecified teachers. Her dissertation was on a composition by Peter Maxwell Davies called Stone Litany. While at Cornell, she attended a poetry seminar led by Archibald Randolph (A.R.) Ammons, whose poetry she would later set to music. She married Robert Silsbee, a physicist who taught at Cornell, In 1964, Silsbee’s work River was performed at the Ferienkurs fuer Neue Musik in Darmstadt, Germany. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, she taught at the State University of Cortland (New York) and at Cornell University. *Composer Fellowship Grant, National Endowment for the Arts They include: Books *Book of Ga *Expressions (clarinet) *Quest (string quartet) *Runemusic (cello) *Spirals (string quartet;