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Ann McCutchan's writing springs from deep interests in music, art, nature, and creativity, and the ways they shape - or are shaped by - individuals, places, and history.  Her work includes music libretti, personal essays, and books.

As a librettist, McCutchan recently completed Swan's Inlet, an opera based on an original story, in collaboration with composer Mark Alan Taggart (March 2018 premiere, Center for Contemporary Opera, NYC) and Purewater, a chamber opera based on André Gide's novella La Symphonie Pastorale, with composer Andrew Rudin, set for performance by the CCO in fall, 2018.  Forthcoming are King Gundafar's Castle, a church opera with C.G. Walden for Dunwoody United Methodist Church (Atlanta), and a play with music for Chamber Music Hawaii.  Among McCutchan's eight previous musical texts is an original contemporary stage play for Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat (Chamber Music Hawaii commission) which she wrote and directed. Of the premiere, American Record Guide noted: “After 85 years, A Soldier’s Tale has finally coalesced, music and drama interacting as equal partners to engage audience members, who left the theater discussing both animatedly.”  

McCutchan is the author of five books, including a biography of French flute virtuoso Marcel Moyse and The Muse That Sings: Composers Speak About the Creative Process -- both important contributions to the literature of music and creativity.  In 2011, she published two titles: a personal essay collection, Circular Breathing: Meditations From a Musical Life, and River Music: An Atchafalaya Story, an eco-biography of Louisiana musician Earl Robicheaux and the vanishing Atchafalaya River Basin he preserves and celebrates in sound. Where's the Moon? a Memoir of the Space Coast and the Florida Dream (TAMU Press, Seventh Generation Series) was released in October, 2016.  McCutchan is currently completing a biography of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author of The Yearling, under contract with W.W. Norton. Her upcoming book project is a biography of composer Florence Price.



Preview: Intellectual Refuge published an excerpt from Where's the Moon?  Read it here.
And a second excerpt! Here.

Interview: "Writing Out of the Worlds You Know," Concerning Where's the Moon?, musical projects and other work.  Published by American Literary Review.
Here's the link.

Interview: With author Richard Burgin, about music and writing, published by American Literary Review.  Here.