Biography

A Tanzania-born American living in Tennessee, Evelyn Pursley-Kopitzke is a neo-classical composer and lyricist whose extensive opus includes chamber, choral, art songs, and orchestral works. Her music has been heard from coast to coast and in Europe. She holds a MM in composition (University of Tennessee) and studied with Drs. Margarita Merriman, Barney Childs, and Kenneth Jacobs. In 1995 she co-founded the Greater Tri-Cities Composers’ Consortium, her music has been in every group production since, and often is the Consortium’s PR writer—including national press. She received top honors in the 2002 Carton Savage international “I Wage Peace” project for her “Salaam, Frieden.” Three of her piano pieces were included in an anthology commissioned in 2005 by the Appalachian Music Teachers’ Association and that same year was AMTA Composer of the Year. Her “Celtic Homage: Let’s Dance” for flute quintet earned a student ensemble a first-place rating at the 2017 Upper East Tennessee Solo and Ensemble Festival. She also won the 2019 Huntsville Master Chorale Composition Competition for her setting of “Ignition” (poem by Olivia Fox) which celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing. The recording is slated for the Space Center’s permanent exhibit. Pursley-Kopitzke’s music is published by United Music and Media Publishers or Morpho Press.
            Her music tends toward dramatic and descriptive tone poems. It often uses traditional instruments in an unusual manner or with extended technique. Pursley-Kopitzke’s harmonic palette includes modernist harmonies, “with just enough dissonance,” to quote Dr. Craig Combs, artistic director of The Paramount Chamber Players. The narrative quality of her music engages and entertains her audiences – who rarely realize they have been listening to modernist music.
       Selected works include an Arts Build Communities Tennessee Arts Commission, Reflections (2008) for marimba, SATB, and organ; Festival (2008) four movements for flute ensemble; “Magnificat” for two soprano soloists and chorus; “Adagio, Beyond the Silence” (2010) for soprano and chamber orchestra; Cetacean Suite (2010) six movements for brass quintet, The Constellations, a symphony (2011), five movements for large orchestra; and commissions and premieres of multiple smaller works. Recently she completed There’s Music, a five movement song cycle for coloratura soprano and piano (orchestral version forthcoming) commissioned by Dr. Sun-Joo Oh, of East Tennessee State University; “The Ballade of Dryope” for harp solo, commissioned by Martha Painter; and “Fantasia” for saxophone and marimba, commissioned by Dr. Liz Soflin, premiered at Arizona State University, 2017; and “Poor Valley Pilgrims,” a commission by the Milligan College Orchestra, premiered April, 2018.
       She traveled to London, England, in 2012 for the European premiere of her African Vignettes by the group Twenty-21, a London-based group directed by Dr. Craig Combs. She was commissioned by the North Cambridge Family Opera to write  “Water from the Lovely Lakes” for their H2Oratorio—part of the 2013 Cambridge Science Festival, which was performed at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. 
     The Paramount Chamber Players have been highly instrumental in promoting Pursley-Kopitzke’s music. They premiered three of her larger works: African Vignettes (2007) and Victoria Vignettes (2010), and commissioned her to set four movements of Second Sight (2014), poetry by the late Samuel E. Miller, M.D. She collaborated with the Highlands Ballet Company and The Paramount Chamber Players to produce a new ballet, Magic Butterfly, a 2018 Virginia Commission for the Arts grant winner, March 15 and 16, 2019. 

After COVID eliminated too many opportunities, Evelyn turned to writing words and completed four books and some short stories. Stay tuned for further news on future publication. You can sample her writing in her blog.

Recent performances: Recent performances include a setting of Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” by the Mountain Empire Children’s Choral Academy, and “Who’s that Woman in the Mirror?” by the Cantemus Women’s Choir. 

Upcoming performances include the world premieres of “Sheer Dogged Stubbornness”, by Concert Band: Winds of the Mountain Empire, July 16, 2023. and “Leaf” by Appalachian Men’s Ensemble, September 29 and 30, 2023.

Evelyn Pursley-Kopitzke states that she is grateful for the continued support of and collaboration with performers and hopes to continue to communicate drama, grace, and beauty for all listeners.

To listen go to Music  page.
Member of ASCAP,  Founding member of and primary communication liaison for Greater Tri-Cities Composers’ Consortium.