Natalie Draper is a composer based in the Washington, D.C. metro area. Praised for her "individual and strong voice" (Colin Clarke, Fanfare Magazine), Draper aims to explore new challenges and concepts in each new work. Her music has been programmed by several festivals, symposiums, and conferences, including GAMMA-UT, MusicX, SEAMUS, the Charles E. Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music, and the Tanglewood Music Center. She has collaborated with a variety of ensembles and performers--recent projects have involved soprano Danielle Buonaiuto, Baltimore's Occasional Symphony, and the Empyrean Ensemble. Upcoming projects include a solo piano piece commissioned by Lior Willinger, a cello and bass duet commissioned by Katy Bell, and a new work for the Akropolis Reed Quintet as part of the I-Park Composers + Musicians collaborative residency. Her compositions have received prizes and recognition, including First Prize in Peabody's Prix d’Été competition and Second Prize in the Virginia Carty deLillo competition. Timelapse Variations, which was written for Symphony Number One, has been recorded on the SNOtone label and is available for streaming on Spotify. Timelapse Variations received positive reviews from Lydia Woolever in Baltimore Magazine ("dissonant melodies that build into a unified spiral"), Tim Smith in The Baltimore Sun (a "tense, darkly colorful churn"), and Mark Medwin in Fanfare Magazine ("...polyrhythm bolstering gorgeous pantonal harmonies and shards of chromatic counterpoint," while  "...items burst forth, in a way that might make Mahler smile..."). Draper was a resident at the Ucross Foundation (2010) and a composition fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center (2015). She received her doctoral degree from the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. 

You can read more about Natalie in this interview with VAN Magazine.