Described as “evocative” (Resonance) and “surreal” music “to bewilder, amuse, and provoke” (Epoch Times), the works of composer Sarah Genevieve Burghart Rice have won great acclaim and inspired intense debate. Burghart Rice received a 2009 ASCAP/Morton Gould Young Composer Award and took 1st Prize in the 2005 Salvatore Martirano Award. Her music has been championed internationally by ensembles such as the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra (Marin Alsop, director), the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, and Juventas.
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Some fantastic musicians and I are working on an album set to release on Neuma Records called Where?. This recording will feature older compositions such as Murmurs from Limbo (the picture above is from that recording session, conducted by Dr. Kathryn Hylton) and new compositions such as Roses less than a Mile from Schlow Library, which is written for the Pennsylvania Quintet. It also features Dr. Tonya Mitchell Spradlin conducting the premiere recording of my mammoth wind ensemble piece The Hardscrabble.


The Penn State School of Music, where I teach, presents the 2023 Penn State New-Music Festival and Symposium. It will take place March 24-25, 2023, featuring the work of composers and scholars selected through an international call for scores and research proposals. We received over 650 submissions from 30 countries. The 2023 festival will feature PSU students and faculty, string quartet in residence Mivos Quartet, guest ensemble Open Music, saxophone quartet Capitol Quartet, and guest percussion quartet Matchstick Percussion.


  • Partita on Rhode Island

    Partita on Rhode Island Duration: 8:00Completed: December, 2003Instrumentation: 2112/2210/2 Perc. / Strings Program Notes Partita on “Rhode Island” is a musical elaboration on a chorale tune, in much the same way that Johann Sebastian Bach or Max Reger would write compositions around chorale melodies. This partita proceeds episodically through different musical worlds and characters represented…

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  • Ah, Holy Jesus

    Ah, Holy Jesus, for Mixed Choir Duration: 3:00Completed: 2006Instrumentation: SAATTBB Choir

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  • Amazing Grace

    Amazing Grace, for Mixed Choir, Tenor Soloist, and Offstage TTBB Quartet Duration: 4:00Completed: 2006Instrumentation: SSATTBB, Alto, Tenor, and Baritone Solo, and offstage TTBB Program Notes : “Rescue Attempt” In 18th and 19th Century America, it was especially popular to graft some sort of sentimental lies unto a song to sell music. In drawing close to…

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