The ATHENA Festival is pleased to announce the 2009 Almquist Choral Composition Award winner: Elizabeth Alexander for her "Blessed Be The Flower That Triumphs At Last" and "The Journey."

Elizabeth Alexander's music moves effortlessly between concert stage, choir loft and jam session, invariably invoking the simple and extraordinary, the ethereal and commonplace, and the beauty and messiness of life. Critics have called her music "contemplative and hopeful," "awesomely fresh," and "particularly potent," with praise for its "elegance..., subtle, unexpected harmonic turns, and freshness within a well-known language."

Her many commissions include works for orchestra, chamber ensembles and chorus, written for such performers as Minnesota Philharmonic Orchestra, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Central Wisconsin Symphony Orchestra, Society for New Music, Women's Works, Elmer Iseler Singers, Cornell University Chorus and Cincinnati Mens Chorus. Other notable performers of her music include Charleston Symphony Orchestra; chamber ensembles North/South Consonance and Sounds New; singers Ruth MacKenzie, Bradley Greenwald and Janet Youngdahl; and hundreds of choirs, including VocalEssence, Gregg Smith Singers, New York Virtuoso Singers, Kansas City Chorale, San Francisco Gay Mens Chorus, and the entire student body of Waunakee Elementary School.

Her passion for language is reflected in her catalogue of 20 songs and over 60 choral works. Reviewers frequently refer to "the close personal resonance between the composer and the words," commenting on her music's ability to "touch on a range of emotions" with "delicacy and sincerity." A reviewer for Philadelphia's Broad Street Review described one of her choral works as "the most personally moving piece I encountered...between Thanksgiving and Twelfth Night."

Alexander studied composition with Steven Stucky, Jack Gallagher, Yehudi Wyner and Karel Husa, receiving her bachelors degree from The College of Wooster and her doctorate from Cornell University. Her piano study included classical piano with Daniel Winter, fortepiano with Malcolm Bilson and George Barth, and jazz piano with Molly MacMillan. She has been the recipient of numerous grants, awards and fellowships from such organizations as the Jerome Foundation, New York Council on the Arts, Wisconsin Arts Board, National Orchestral Association, Meet the Composer and American Composers Forum, as well as over a dozen national and international awards for individual works.