Biography

Dr. Brittany J. Green (she/her) (b. 1991) is a North Carolina-based composer and performance artist. 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. Recent works engage sonification and black feminist theory as tools for sonic world-building, exploring the construction, displacement, and rupture of systems. Brittany’s research and creative interests include contextualizing the work of Julius Eastman through the lens of queer and critical race theory.

Her music has been featured worldwide including performances at Carnegie Hall, Tanglewood, the World Saxophone Congress, Symphony Center, and New York City Electronic Music Festival. Her work has been commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, Alarm Will Sound, JACK Quartet, Composers Now, Karen Slack, and Rebekah Heller. She has held residencies with the Louisville Orchestra, Lexington Philharmonic, Copland House, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts.

Highlights of the 2026-27 season include a fellowship with Beethovenfest culminating in the European premiere of gLitched dreams//invisible BEINGS by Alarm Will Sound, commercial releases with Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (TESTIFY!), Rebekah Heller (Righteous Rage), Daniel Schreiner (bluedream), and American Composers Orchestra (Letters to America and Rencontres), performances at NCMEA (Final Exam— world premiere; Freedom 2040), and new works for Lexington Philharmonic, Jasper Quartet, FryStreet Quartet, and Janghyun Kim with the ECU Wind Ensemble.

Brittany’s music has been awarded the Alarm Will Sound Matt Marks Impact Fund (2023), American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Charles Ives Scholarship (2022), ASCAP Foundation’s Morton Gould Award (2021), and New Music USA’s Creator Development Grant (2021). She holds a BM in Music Education from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, a MM in Music Composition and Theory from East Carolina University, and a Ph.D in Music Composition from Duke University. In her free time, Brittany enjoys reading poetry, watching basketball, video games, and spending time in front of the bonfire.

Short Bio (150 words)

Dr. Brittany J. Green (she/her) is a North Carolina-based composer and performance artist. 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. Green’s 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 Beethovenfest, TIME:SPANS, NYC Electronic Music Festival, and World Saxophone Congress, and has been performed by the American Composer's Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic. Her collaborators include Karen Slack, Rebekah Heller, Alarm Will Sound, the International Contemporary Ensemble, and JACK Quartet. Brittany holds awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, ASCAP Foundation, and New MusicUSD, and recently completed her Ph.D in Music Composition from Duke University.

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Glitch in the System

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

“Taking cues from the American minimalist tradition and grounded in Green’s engagement with Black feminist theory, TESTIFY! showed the Jacksonville Symphony and its audience embracing a world centered on musical memory, maternal influence, bodily shouts and dances.” — Matt Bickett, Jacksonville Symphony

“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

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