Lavinia Kell Parker (b. 1977) has been the recipient of awards in national and international competitions, including the New York Treble Singers Composition Competition, the International Alliance of Women In Music New Genre Award and the Ruth Watson Henderson Choral Composition Competition. Her formal training began at Wilfrid Laurier University and she has continued her studies with residencies in France and the United States. Teachers have included Glenn Buhr, Linda Caitlin Smith and Peter Hatch.
A featured composer in festivals and benefit concerts in Canada, the United States, and France, she uses her compositions as a medium of social activism addressing current issues including race relations, mental illness, and aboriginal rights. Solo piano improvisations are used to communicate complex questions and encourage independent thought. Failure Is Impossible, a collaboration with Toronto based performance artist Catherine Pickup, created a forum for open dialogue regarding women’s issues integrating elements of improvisation, dance, drama and art.
An avid interest in choral writing has been fostered in part by her experience as a choral singer, and that as a church musician, most recently as the choir director at the First Baptist Church in Brockport, NY. Professional and amateur choirs have performed her works, including the Toronto Mendelssohn Youth Choir, the Eastman Women's Chorus, the Amadeus Choir of Toronto and the New York Treble Singers. She Sings! (directed by Associate Composer Martha Hill Duncan, Kingston, Ontario) will be releasing their 2009 CD with her piece Songs Are Thoughts, as the title track. Lavinia currently resides in the United States with the foremost interpreter of her work, her husband pianist Brad Parker, and their two children.
Feb. 2009