Ann McCutchan
Ann McCutchan is the author of four books: Marcel Moyse: Voice of the Flute, The Muse That Sings: Composers Speak About the Creative Process, River Music: An Atchafalaya Story, and Circular Breathing: Meditations From a Musical Life. As an essayist and journalist, she has published personal essays and articles in numerous journals and magazines. "Reaching for the End of Time," an essay on the music of Olivier Messiaen and the frailties of heroes and the human body, appeared in The Best American Spiritual Writing. Her current book projects are Where's the Moon? a memoir set in Florida during the Space Race, and a biography of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.
Ann began her writing career as classical music critic for the Austin American-Statesman and art and antiques columnist for Gannett News Service. As a journalist, she wrote hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles on the fine and literary arts, family issues, travel, and the environment, and received a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Educational Press Association of America.
A musician and librettist as well, she has collaborated on several works for the stage and concert hall. Recent projects include Scaling the Walls, an evening-length multi-media work created with artist Pat Alexander and choreographer Joyce Morgenroth and premiered at Cornell University and the Maryland Institute College of Art. Her script for Igor Stravinsky’s WWI musical play A Soldier’s Tale, commissioned and premiered by Chamber Music Hawaii, drew high critical praise: “After 85 years,” wrote Ruth O. Bingham of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and American Record Guide, “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." In 2010 she toured with composer/percussionist John Lane in two collaborative works for speaker and percussion; currently, she is writing an opera libretto based on an original story, in collaboration with composer Mark Alan Taggart (2015 premiere).
Ann McCutchan has been awarded grants, fellowships and residencies from the Rockefeller Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, the Thinking Like a Mountain Foundation, the Jentel Foundation, the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences, the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, the National Park Service, and others. She holds music degrees from Florida State University and the University of Michigan, and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Houston. The founding director of the University of Wyoming's MFA creative writing program, she has taught creative writing at the University of North Texas since 2005, and for three years served as Editor of the American Literary Review. In 2014 she received the Kesterson Award for Outstanding Graduate Teaching. Ann was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2010. She serves on the artistic advisory board of Voices of Change, the Dallas contemporary music ensemble.
copyright 2014 Ann McCutchan
