Gwyneth Walker

Gwyneth Walker (b. 1947; New York City, New York) is an American composer.

Walker grew up in New Canaan, Connecticut and is a graduate of Pembroke College in Brown University and the Hartt School of Music and holds B.A., M.M., and D.M.A. degrees in music composition. During her high school (Abbot Academy-Phillips Academy/Andover) and college years, she performed in vocal octets for which she created all of the choral arrangements. During her twenties, Gwyneth Walker was married to fellow composer David Burton (1945–1975).

Upon completing her academic training, she joined the faculty of the Oberlin College Conservatory. She left academia in 1982 in order to pursue a career as a full-time composer. For almost 30 years, she lived on a dairy farm in Braintree, Vermont and now lives primarily in New Canaan, Connecticut, her childhood hometown.

Gwyneth Walker has written over 300 compositions for orchestra, chamber ensembles, chorus, solo voice, and individual instruments. They have been performed nationwide in venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Washington National Cathedral, and The Ellen Show.

Her work, while appealing to modern sensibilities, is traditional and accessible in the unadorned style of American composers such as Aaron Copland and Charles Ives. "My pieces always have melody and form and a rhythm that’s right there for you," she says. Among Walker's more popular works is "Songs for Women's Voices," a cycle of choral works based on six poems by the American poet May Swenson, and "A Vision of Hills," a piano trio that Walker says was inspired by her home state of Vermont.

In recent years, Gwyneth Walker traveled across the United States working with a variety of musicians as they recorded her works. As a result of these collaborations, several new CDs have been released:

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