Margaret Collins Stoop
Margaret Collins Stoop, the founding director of the Adesso
Choral Society of Ridgefield, CT, is a composer whose works have been
performed throughout Europe and the United States. Most recent performances of
her work include: “A Night Song” for flute, cello and piano, in
Manhattan at the National Association of Composers-USA (NACUSA) East Coast
Division concert in June of 2006, and in Hamden, CT in May 2006, at the
Connecticut Composers, Inc. (CCI) concert; "Time Pieces" for
solo piano in June 2006 in Danbury, CT; "Before and After the End"
for string quintet, on April 22, 2005 at the NACUSA national concert in
Northridge, CA; "Hestia’s Loom" for SSAA chorus on March 5,
2005 at the ACDA Eastern division convention in Northampton, MA and on tour with
the Smith College Chamber Singers in Budapest and Prague in March 2005; "Song
of Thanksgiving" for SATB chorus and keyboard, on September 19, 2004 at
the Forging Links conference of the CFAMC in Raleigh, NC.
A recipient of the Masterworks Prize, Stoop's song, "The Sepherd and the
Night Sky" was recorded by members of the Kiev Philharmonic Orchestra
and the Chamber Choir Kyiv in 2006. It is available from ERMMedia on a
compilation CD entitled Holidays of the New Era.
In 2002 her choral work, "Prayer for Peace: E Pluribus Unum,"
was awarded the distinction of honors by the Waging Peace Through Singing
competition, sponsored by the University of Oregon. Among other awards, in 1998
Stoop was a finalist in the American Romanian Team for the Arts Young Composers
Contest, and her string quintet, "Before and After the End,"
was performed in Romania by the Black Sea Philharmonic. In 1997 she received a
commission to write a work for "Door Eendracht Sterk" Fanfare Band of
Hedel, The Netherlands. "Hedels Fanfare," scored for a
sixty-piece brass band, was performed in October of that year in Hedel, to
commemorate the band's one hundred year anniversary.
Stoop began her formal music education at the age of sixteen with a scholarship
to the preparatory division of the Mannes College of Music, where she studied
flute with Laurel Zucker. In 1989, she graduated from Smith College cum laude,
with the special distinction of High Honors in Music for her thesis, On the
Horizontal and Vertical in Selected Works by Schoenberg and Webern. Her
primary instructors at Smith were John Sessions, Donald Wheelock and Ronald
Perera. In 1990 and 1991 she resided in Hong Kong, where she studied Chinese
flutes and folk music at the Yuet Wah Music School, and western flute privately
with Timothy Wilson, a former member of the Hong Kong Philharmonic. In 1998,
Stoop received her master's degree in music composition from the Aaron Copland
School of Music of the City University of New York, where she studied under Thea
Musgrave. She has pursued further compositional study with Robert Carl of the
Hartt School of Music.
In addition to composing and directing the Adesso Choral Society, Stoop teaches
music theory at the Westport School of Music, music appreciation and history
with Ridgefield Adult Education, and maintains a private studio where she
teaches flute, piano, theory and composition.