08/31/2026
We are thrilled to announce our 2026 Commissioned Composer: Jennifer Lucy Cook! Honor Choir Festival participants and members of Kent State Choirs will premiere a new choral work by this award-winning composer this October!
ABOUT THE COMPOSER:
Jennifer Lucy Cook (she/her) is a Los Angeles-based composer and lyricist specializing in contemporary classical choral work and music for stage and screen. She is the recipient of the Chorus Austin Composition Prize, the Cantus Emerging Composer Award, the HerVoice Female Composer Prize, and the Edwin Fissinger Composition Prize. Jen is currently the composer-in-residence with the Phoenix Chorale, who commissioned an oratorio about the National Parks set to premiere in early 2027. Next spring, she will return to Carnegie Hall as composer and conductor, headlining a program devoted to her music and performed by a 250-person choir.
She is currently writing music and lyrics for a new musical comedy alongside Oscar-nominated bookwriter Tye Blue (Titaníque). She also contributed additional materials for award-winning composer Alan Menken’s solo show, A Whole New World for Alan Menken and comedian Riki Lindhome’s upcoming special Dead Inside. She is an alumnus of the Johnny Mercer Foundation Writer’s Grove with Goodspeed Musicals and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Other theater commissions include Full House Theatre Co., British Youth Musical Theatre, and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London. Cook’s music has found an audience on TikTok, where songs from her original musical Salem, her choral piece “Time,” and her musical recaps of The Bachelor have garnered millions of views. She earned her Master of Arts in Musical Theater Writing from Goldsmiths University in London and her Bachelor of Music in Media Music from Brigham Young University.
