Full Biography

Megan DiGeorgio is a composer, violist, vocalist, educator, and arts administrator based in the Washington, D.C. area.

Megan’s music has been performed across the United States. She has been commissioned by Duo Entre-Nous, Concertia, University of Maine Farmington, clarinetist Joanna McCoskey Wiltshire, Fear No Music, and the Euphonic Syndicate. Her music has been performed by ensembles and performers such as the International Contemporary Ensemble, Trio Lunaire, Hypercube, Artifice, TURNmusic, Fear No Music, Jackie Glazier, Joanna McCoskey Wiltshire, Aaron Wyanski, Invoke, the Susquehanna Symphony Orchestra, the Pennsbury Community Band, Kylwyria, loadbang, and the Euphonic Syndicate, and at events such as the the International Clarinet Association’s Virtual ClarinetFest 2021, TURN UP Multimedia Festival 2021, the Hypercube Composition Lab 2020, Connecticut Summerfest 2020, “A Musical Celebration of the Music of Pablo Neruda,” Fear No Music’s HEARINGS, and District New Music Coalition’s 2019 and 2018 New Music DC Conferences.

She was selected for the Out of Our Shells project, organized by American University’s Humanities Truck. This is a project highlighting homegrown music and artists of the Washington, DC area. She has been awarded Concertia’s Emerging Composer Fellowship for 2021-2022. As a part of this fellowship, she will be collaborating with artists of Houston, Texas-based Concertia on a new commission and recording project. She was selected to participate in Fresh Squeezed Opera’s 2022 Vocal Lab, for which she composed a new work for bass-baritone and piano, to be premiered in August 2022. She has been awarded an Honorable Mention for the 2021 American Prize for Composition in the Vocal Chamber Music category. She has also been named a finalist in the Instrumental Chamber Music category, and a semi-finalist in the Choral Music category. In 2020, Megan was selected to be a festival composer at the Hypercube Composition Lab, presented by Charlotte New Music, and at Connecticut Summerfest. She was also awarded TURNmusic’s 2019 Collegiate Composition Prize, which included a performance of the winning composition, Partial Pressures, in Burlington, Vermont.

Combining her artistic pursuits of composer, performer, and organizer/curator, in May 2022, Megan presented a program of her own music, titled Equilibrium, performed by herself alongside collaborators Roger Zahab, violin, Erin Murphy Snedecor, cello, Emory Hensley, percussion, and Nathaniel Wolff, oboe. She is also an advocate for local collaboration, so this performance took place at local coffee shop Vigilante Coffee in Hyattsville, Maryland, Megan’s city of residence.

Her commissioned piece from clarinetist Joanna McCoskey Wiltshire was premiered in January 2021, and has gone on to be performed by Jackie Glazier at TURN UP Multimedia Festival 2021 and at the International Clarinet Association’s Virtual ClarinetFest 2021. Her commission from University of Maine Farmington’s Music Department, which was to compose a piece as part of their “Music During COVID” honors seminar and which was premiered in April 2021, is open source and open instrumentation, designed for anyone to be able to play. The score and accompanying audio file may be found here.

Other recent highlights include a premiere as a part of “A Musical Celebration of the Music of Pablo Neruda, working with percussionist Chris Graham at the Hypercube Composition Lab, who premiered her piece for solo percussion via livestream in November 2020, working with the International Contemporary Ensemble at Connecticut Summerfest, who virtually premiered her string trio in September 2020, Artifice premiering her choral work, the in between spaces, in March 2020, and working with new music ensemble and advocacy group Fear No Music to compose a piece of new vocal chamber music based on the 2018 Kavanaugh Confirmation Hearings, which permiered in September 2019 in Portland, Oregon.

Her primary composition teachers have been Jonathan Bailey Holland, Jennifer Margaret Barker, and Stephen Gorbos.

Megan is the Director of Education Advancement for the Boulanger Initiative, a Washington D.C.-based organization that advocates for women and gender marginalized composers. In this role, she focuses on creating opportunities for young people to explore the art of composition who traditionally would not have had access to such opportunities, as well as educating young people about women and gender diverse composers in the past and present. She serves on the leadership team of District New Music Coalition, an organization that promotes the performance and contemporary music by connecting composers, performers, institutions, and audiences located in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area through concerts, conferences, and active community-building. She is also a founding member of Artifice Ensemble, a contemporary music choir in the Washington, D.C. area.

She has performed extensively throughout the Washington, DC area, including at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, at several Smithsonian museums, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, and for Pope Francis during his 2015 United States visit. She has been heard on NAXOS American Classics in the National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic. Her primary viola teachers have been Wendy Richman, Sheila Browne, and Tsuna Sakamoto.

In addition, Megan is Director of Music at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, DC, and Soprano Section Leader in the Chancel Choir of First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, DC. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in music composition from Vermont College of Fine Arts, a Master of Music in viola performance from the University of Delaware, and a Bachelor of Music in viola performance with a minor in music composition from The Catholic University of America.

As an artist, Megan believes in collaboration and community, rather than competition. She takes joy in creating and inspiring others to create. She most enjoys working in a spirit of genuine collaboration with other artists, musical and non-musical, and she strives for full integration of her various artistic pursuits into one comprehensive creative practice.

Megan believes that there is no limit to the number of seats at the table, so to speak; that there are not a finite number of opportunities that artists need to compete for. In her work, she aims to open up space and empower other artists; she believes that the more we all succeed, the more opportunities will be created and the more our community as a whole will be uplifted. She tries to make the music and new music communities accessible and equitable spaces for artists to create.