Walker was born in New York City and grew up in New Canaan, Connecticut. She is a 1968 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 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. 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.
Work
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 are "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:
Gwyneth Walker's choral work, “Songs to the Lord of Peace” was commissioned by the Center for Catholic Studies at Fairfield University in celebration of the 60th Anniversary Season of the Fairfield University Glee Club, which premiered the work on April 14, 2007 in Fairfield, CT. Gwyneth Walker's choral work, “A Heart in Hiding,” was commissioned and performed by the Thomas Circle Singers in Washington DC, in 2008. Walker's piano concerto, "Across the Water: Songs of the Water for Piano and Orchestra" was premiered in October 2012 with the Holyoke Civic Symphony and pianist Evan Roider in Holyoke, Massachusetts. To celebrate the 300th anniversary of the town of Lexington, Massachusetts, Walker composed a new setting of the Longfellow poem "Paul Revere's Ride" which premiered in January 2013. in 2017, Walker was named "Composer in Residence" with the Great LakesChamber Orchestra in Petosky, Michigan. The residency will run from 2017 to 2020, culminating in a performance of the new cantata, "The Great Lakes" in 2020 by the orchestra and chorus.
