Martha Horst

Ms. Horst is a composer who has devoted herself to the performance, creation, and instruction of classical music. Her music has also been performed by performers and groups such as the Fromm Players, Earplay, Alea III, Empyrean Ensemble, Susan Narucki, Left Coast Ensemble, Dal Niente, The Women’s Philharmonic, Composers, Inc., members of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Eric Mandat, and Amy Dissanayake. Ms. Horst recently won the 2005 Alea III International Composition Competition for her work Threads and the Rebecca Clarke International Composition Competition for her work Cloister Songs, based on 18th century utopian poetry. She has held fellowships at the MacDowell Colony, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Wellesley Conference, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and Dartington International School in the UK. Her work Piano Sonata No. 1, recorded by acclaimed pianist Lara Downes, was recently released nationally by Crossover Media.

She began her performance and music theory training at the age of five and began her formal composition studies at Stanford University, where she studied with Ross Bauer, David Rakowski, and John Chowning at CCRMA. She has attended several national and international festivals where she has studied with composers such as Milton Babbitt, Mario Davidovsky, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, and Oliver Knussen. She received a Ph.D. in theory and composition from the University of California, Davis.

Before moving to North Carolina, Ms. Horst was an active member of the San Francisco musical community. Ms. Horst was President of Earplay, a San Francisco based contemporary music ensemble. In addition to her compositional activities, she was also a professional singer, performing regularly with the Grammy-award winning San Francisco Symphony Chorus.
Dr. Horst currently teaches composition and theory at Illinois State University and has also taught at the University of California, Davis, East Carolina University, and San Francisco State University.