Discipline: Music Composition

Sheila Silver

Discipline: Music Composition
Region: Forest Hills, NY
MacDowell Fellowships: 1987, 1988

Sheila Silver is an American composer. In 1968 she received a bachelor of arts degree from University of California at Berkeley, and earned her Ph.D. from Brandeis University in Massachusetts in 1976. She also trained for two years in Europe after being awarded the George Ladd Prix de Paris. In addition to the Prix de Paris, Silver has also won the Rome Prize (1978), the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize in Music Composition in Opera (2007), and the ISCM National Composers Competition (twice). Her works include an opera, The Thief of Love, and a piano concerto written for Alexander Paley. Silver is currently working on an opera based on Khaled Hosseini's novel A Thousand Splendid Suns. She is married to director John Feldman, for whom she has composed scores for his films Alligator Eyes, Dead Funny, and Who the Hell is Booby Roos? Silver has been a professor at both the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the College of William and Mary.

Studios

Watson

Sheila Silver worked in the Watson studio.

Built in 1916 in memory of Regina Watson of Chicago, a musician and teacher, this studio was donated by a group of her friends, along with funds for its maintenance. Originally designed to serve as a composers’ studio with room for performance, Watson was used as a recital hall for chamber music for a…

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