Lisa Despain

Lisa is jazz pianist/composer trained under jazz legend Ellis Marsalis in New Orleans. She is the recipient of the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) Jazz Fellowship, the ASCAP Centennial Commission Honoring Duke Ellington, a Copland Fellowship, a Barlow Commission, and three American Composers Forum Commissions.

She is Director for Performing at LaGuardia Community College – City University New York and the editor/arranger of Hal Leonard’s musical theatre anthology series “Broadway Presents.”

UPCOMING WORKS

Storyville: music by Lisa DeSpain, lyrics by Kristen Anderson-Lopez, book by Julia Jordan

CREDITS

“Rise & Fall”, String Quartet no. 1 (Commissioned by the Barlow Foundation)
“Mean Ole World” (dance score – premiered at New Victory)
“Dreaming in the Land of Blue Oz” – Big Band
“An American Nativity” – Oratorio (Commissioned by the New Haven Symphony Orchestra
“Sonetos de Amour”: for Chorale and Wind Ensemble (Copland House)
“Into the Realm of the Gods”: Wind Ensemble (USAF Band of Flight in honor of the Wright Brothers Centennial of Flight)
“Flight of the Condor”: score for Peruvian Circus