Brenda Portman

Composer

About

Brenda Portman holds degrees from Wheaton College, Northwestern University, and the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music where she received a full scholarship as first prize winner of the Strader Organ Competition and served as a teaching assistant for the organ department.

She has won numerous awards in organ playing competitions. (Albert Schweitzer Organ Competition, Canadian International Organ Competition, Arthur Poister Competition, Fort Wayne National organ-Playing Competition and semifinalist in AGO National Young Artists Competition). She received the S. Lewis Elmer Award for the highest score on both the AAGO and FAGO exams combined.

Brenda now serves as Resident Organist at Hyde Park Community United Methodist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, and teaches organ at Xavier University in Cincinnati.

Her compositions have won several awards: Elegy for organ solo won first place in the Twin Cities AGO Composition Competition; Monument for organ solo won third place in District of Columbia Composition Competition. Choral/hymn awards include second place in two divisions of the University of Notre Dame’s Liturgy Alive! Composition Competition (2019) for a hymn O Mystery of Night’s Horizon Setting and a women’s choir piece, Laudate Dominum. Her musical setting of the new hymn text, Christ, Who Was Before the World Began, was selected for the 300th anniversary of Bruton Parish Episcopal Church in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Her doctoral research on minimalism and twentieth-century Dutch organ music has resulted in published articles in The Diapason and The American Organist.

Connect with Barbara at www.brendaportman.com.