Creative Team: Composer and Librettist

Andrew Earle Simpson, composer

Andrew Earle Simpson is Associate Professor of Music and Chair of the Department of Theory-Composition at The Benjamin T. Rome School of Music of The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.  He received a DM in Composition from Indiana University in 1995, a MusM from Boston University in 1992, and a BM in Music Theory and Composition in 1990 from Butler University.  His teachers have included Lukas Foss, Claude Baker, Eugene O'Brien, Frederick Fox, and Michael Schelle.  He has received grants and awards from the American Music Center, the American Composers Forum, the Alice M. Ditson Fund, the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, and the Loeb Classical Library Foundation, among others. 

As a composer of opera, orchestral works, chamber music, choral and vocal music, dance, theater and film music, Simpson's works have been performed across the United States and abroad by such ensembles as the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Trinity Chamber Orchestra, Washington Korean Symphony Orchestra, Cedar Rapids Symphony Chamber Players, Contemporary Music Forum, Tampa Bay Composers Forum, Cantate Chamber Singers, Red Cedar Trio, Lyraylos Ensemble (Greece), and by such soloists as Brian Ganz, Michael Cameron, Nina Assimakopoulos, and Nancy Ambrose King. 

Simpson’s first CD of chamber music, Exhortations (Athena Records, 1998), received critical praise from American Record Guide, Strad/Double Bassist (UK), and others.  His second CD of chamber music, A Fiery and Still Night, was released by Capstone Records in August 2006. 

Dr. Simpson's interests are wide-ranging and involve performance and collaborative genres, frequently engaging the connection between music and the visual: in spring 2005, in conjunction with fellow composer-performer Maurice Saylor, Simpson founded the Snark Ensemble, an instrumental group devoted to presenting live performances of the composers’ new scores for vintage silent films.  Dr. Simpson has also been active as composer and improvisatory pianist for silent films at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC: his debut performance of original music for two silent films in April 2006 was followed by the premiere of fully-composed new scores for seven short films of French film pioneer Georges Melies in July-August 2006, also at the National Gallery (the composer's "Melies Suite"). 

Dr. Simpson recently completed a term, in summer 2006, as Composer-in-Residence for the Cantate Chamber Singers (Washington, DC) and continues as Composer-in-Residence for the Red Cedar Trio (Cedar Rapids, IA).

Dr. Simpson has also conceived and implemented a new Master’s degree program focusing on composition of music for the stage (opera, musical theatre, dance, and drama) which opened at the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music in fall 2005.  This innovative program - the MM Composition, Stage Music Emphasis - was designed by Dr. Simpson in response to a perceived need for instruction and practical training in an area of compositional activity frequently under-emphasized by traditional university composition curricula.  Dr. Simpson also founded two annual series at CUA, the Visiting Composers Series (2003) and the School of Music Film Series (2004). 

Click here to visit Andrew Earle Simpson's professional website.

Sarah Brown Ferrario, librettist

Sarah Ferrario holds a BSOF degree in flute, Latin, and Greek from Indiana University, Bloomington; an MPhil in Greek and Latin Languages and Literatures from the University of Oxford (acquired as a Marshall Scholar); and an MA in Classics from Princeton University.  During academic year 2001-02 she was a Regular Member at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Greece, where she was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship; she is currently completing her PhD in the Department of Classics at Princeton University.  For the academic year 2003-04, she was a Graduate Fellow of the University Center for Human Values (Princeton) while at work on her dissertation; during AY 2004-05, she was awarded a Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Fellowship to support that project.

Ms. Ferrario's other interests within the general field of classical studies are diverse and wide-ranging. In addition to translating the libretti for the Oresteia Project directly from the ancient Greek of Aeschylus, she has published a fragment of a literary papyrus from Greco-Roman Egypt (forthcoming in the Oxyrhynchus Papyri series) and a pedagogical article on a new seminar entitled "Greek Tragedy and Opera" which she recently team-taught with Andrew Simpson.  Dr. Simpson and Ms. Ferrario together also have a multimedia article on The Oresteia Project forthcoming in the electronic classics journal Didaskalia (http://www.didaskalia.net).

Ms. Ferrario's past teaching credentials include work at both the University of Oxford and Rutgers University.  She is currently Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Greek and Latin at The Catholic University of America, where she teaches both Latin and Greek.  Her major projects at this time include the completion of her dissertation, entitled Towards the 'Great Man': Individuals and Groups as Agents of Historical Change in Classical Greece.

Click here to see Sarah Brown Ferrario's CV.  Click here to visit the Department of Greek and Latin at CUA.