Ann Silsbee

Ann Loomis Silsbee (21 July 1930 - 28 August 2003) was an American composer and poet who composed two operas, published three books of poetry, and received several awards, commissions, and fellowships.

Silsbee was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She earned a bachelor's degree from Radcliffe College, a master's in music from Syracuse University, and a doctor of musical arts in composition from Cornell University. She studied with Irving Fine, Earl George, and Karel Husa, and in Paris with unspecified teachers. Her dissertation was on a composition by Peter Maxwell Davies called Stone Litany. While at Cornell, she attended a poetry seminar led by Archibald Randolph (A.R.) Ammons, whose poetry she would later set to music. She married Robert Silsbee, a physicist who taught at Cornell, and they had three sons, Doug, David, and Peter.

In 1964, Silsbee's work River was performed at the Ferienkurs fuer Neue Musik in Darmstadt, Germany. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, she taught at the State University of Cortland (New York) and at Cornell University. In the early 2000s, she hosted several poetry groups and retreats. Her awards, commissions, and fellowships included:

Awards:
Burge Eastman Prize
Society for New Music
Commissions
First Street Playhouse, New York
TROIKA Association, Ithaca, New York
Fellowships:
Composers Conference, Vermont
Composer Fellowship Grant, National Endowment for the Arts
Yaddo Residency 1979
Silsbee served on the boards of the American Composers Alliance (ACA) and the International League of Women Composers. Her papers are archived at Cornell University. Her works were recorded commercially on the LPs TURNA TV 34704 and NORTH NR 221, and published by the ACA.