Biography

Brittany J. Green (she/her; b. 1991) is a North Carolina-based composer, performer, and educator. Described as “a creative force of attention-seizing versatility” (The Washington Post) and “cinematic in the best sense” (Chicago Classical Review), Brittany’s music works to facilitate collaborative, intimate musical spaces that ignite visceral responses. The intersections between sound, video, movement, and text serves as the focal point of these musical spaces, often questioning and redefining the relationships between these three elements.

Brittany’s music has been featured at concerts and festivals worldwide including Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNOW, World Saxophone Congress, New York City Electronic Music Festival, the American Piano Awards, and performances at Carnegie Hall, Tanglewood, the DiMenna Center, and Miller Theater. Her collaborators include Rebekah Heller,  Alarm Will Sound, the International Contemporary Ensemble, and JACK Quartet. Brittany has held residencies with the Louisville Orchestra, Copland House, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. The 2025-2026 season includes the Saykaly Garbulinska Composer Residency with Lexington Philharmonic, a collaboration with the New York Philharmonic for Dudamel Conducts Eroica and The People United, An Experiment in Voices at Tanglewood with poet Aracelis Girmay and violist Ashleigh Gordon, and Letters to America at Carnegie Hall with GRAMMY-award winning soprano Karen Slack and the American Composers Orchestra.

Brittany’s research explores the work of Julius Eastman through the lenses of queer engages methodologies from music theory, critical theory, and queer theory to analyze the work of Julius Eastman and situate his output in a lineage of Black experimentalism and as a site of radical imagination and resistance. Additional research interests include investigating sound as a site of strategic opacity in the Black Church and engaging  MaxMSP as a tool for developing creativity and design principles in K-12 Music Education. She has presented research at the North Carolina Music Educators Association Conference, Society of Composers Inc. National Conference, Darkwater Women in Music Festival, and East Carolina University’s Research and Creative Arts Week.

Brittany is a member of The Recording Academy, and Society of Composers, Inc., and holds awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (Charles Ives Scholarship), ASCAP Foundation (Morton Gould Award), New Music USA (Creator Development Grant), and Alarm Will Sound (Matt Marks Impact Fund). Brittany holds degrees from UNC-Pembroke (BM Music Education), East Carolina University (MM Composition and Theory), and Duke University (AM Music Composition; Ph.D Music Composition). Brittany teaches composition and music theory at East Carolina University. In her free time she enjoys reading poetry, line dancing, video games, watching basketball, and spending time in front of the bonfire with family and friends.

Short Bio (150 words)

Brittany J. Green (she/her) is a North Carolina-based composer, creative, and educator. Her music facilitates intimate musical spaces that ignite visceral responses at the intersection of sound, video, movement, and text. Recent works engage sonification and black feminist theory as tools for sonic world-building, exploring the construction, displacement, and rupture of systems. Her artistic practice includes spoken and electronic performance, interdisciplinary collaboration, experiential projects, and acoustic and electroacoustic chamber and large ensemble works. Her music has been featured at Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNOW, World Saxophone Congress, New York City Electronic Music Festival, the American Piano Awards, and performances at Carnegie Hall, Tanglewood, the DiMenna Center, and Miller Theater. Recent collaborators include Lexington Philharmonic, Louisville Orchestra, Karen Slack, Rebekah Heller, and Alarm Will Sound. Brittany holds awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, ASCAP, and New Music USA. Brittany holds a Ph.D from Duke University.

Media

upcoming events

calendar

Press

Articles

Ancestral Echoes

23 for ‘23: Composers and Performers to Watch This Year

Diversifying Classical Repertoire for Intermediate Ensembles: Commissioning Brittany J. Green’s “Freedom 2040: The Tomorrow We’ll Build”

American Academy of Arts and Letters 2022 Music Award Winners

Brittany J. Green’s "Against/Sharp" honors Black lives and voices

Artists as Researchers: Brittany J. Green Is Disrupting Classical Composition

The ASCAP Foundation Names Recipients of 2021 Morton Gould Young Composer Awards

Women composers to revel this weekend at WoCo Fest 2021

“The Durham, N.C.-based composer and educator is a creative force of attention-seizing versatility. She can light up expansive orchestral landscapes (like the churning primordial soup of “In the Beginning”) or dig deep with vivacious chamber works such as “Against/Sharp,” a bracing exploration of Black identity inspired by Zora Neale Hurston…Green, 32, has also recently delved into multimedia projects, including the short film “Thresh and Hold,” a collaboration with poet Marlanda Dekine and filmmaker Mahkia Greene that Green salts with grainy textures and dots with pulsing electronics.” – Michael Andor Brodeur, Washington Post

“Her writing is cinematic in the best sense: gestural, minimal yet detailed, but packing an emotional wallop” – Hannah Edgar, Chicago Classical Review

“Under Marianne Parker’s sympathetic fingers, the standout movement, “L’homme durci,” [from Portraits for piano] is a searing, minute-long maelstrom.” – Hannah Edgar, Chicago Classical Review

“Brittany J. Green’s …to experience life offers a solid contrast in expression of gratitude.” – Les Roka, The Utah Review

“What I find so compelling about Brittany’s work is the freedom with which she has been developing her musical language: she amalgamates and synthesizes the thorniest branches of musical modernism, vernacular music of all sorts, algorithmic computer processes, electronic music, improvisation, and field recordings. Moreover, this synthesis involves bracing conceptual armatures that support her pieces and deepen their meaning. The striking, personal music that has emerged in pieces such as “Against/Sharp” and “r_upTure” reveals the rarest of musical minds: one capable of appealing to the intellect while never forgetting that music is made for the ear, for the mind, and for the heart.” – John Supko, Duke Arts

“On a stage full of talent, Ms. Green proved to be the bright particular shinning star. Her engaging manner and casual delivery were delightful, and the program…an excellent display of her talents as a composer.” – George B. Parous, OnStage Pittsburgh

Podcasts

Art Restart

Composer’s Studio

Create.Inspire.Lead

Lexical Tones

Trilloquy