
Saykaly Garbulinska Composer-in-Residence Program
Founded in 2012 through the generous support of the late Dr. Ronald Saykaly, LexPhil is proud to be an orchestra that supports the creation of new orchestral music by living composers.
brittany j. green
2025-2026 composer-in-residence
LexPhil is excited to announce the appointment of Brittany J. Green as the 2025-2026 Saykaly Garbulinska Composer-in-Residence. LexPhil will collaborate closely with Green throughout the 2025-26 Season to program and perform her works, culminating in the world premiere of a new work at the 2025-26 Season Finale concert.
Brittany J. Green (she/her(s)) is a North Carolina-based composer, creative, and educator. Her music facilitates intimate musical spaces that ignite visceral responses at the intersection of sound, video, movement, and text. Recent works engage sonification and black feminist theory as tools for sonic world-building, exploring the construction, displacement, and rupture of systems. Her artistic practice includes spoken and electronic performance, interdisciplinary collaboration, experiential projects, and acoustic and electroacoustic chamber and large ensemble works. Her music has been featured at TIME:SPANS, NYC Electronic Music Festival, WoCo Fest, and Experimental Sound Studio. Her collaborators include the International Contemporary Ensemble, JACK Quartet, Transient Canvas, Castle of our Skins, Emory University Symphony Orchestra, and Wachovia Winds. Brittany holds awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, ASCAP Foundation, and New Music USA. She is a doctoral candidate at Duke University, pursuing a PhD in music composition as a Dean’s Graduate Fellow.
shawn e. okpebholo
previous composer-in-residence
During the 2023-2024 Season, LexPhil reignited and reimagined the Saykaly Garbulinska Composer-in-Residence Program through the appointment of Lexington-born composer Shawn E. Okpebholo. Shawn was the sixth composer to be named LexPhil’s Composer-in-Residence with his works performed throughout the season including Sing Dumb (2016) and the world premiere of the LexPhil co-commissioned orchestral arrangement of Two Black Churches featuring baritone Will Liverman.
TWO BLACK CHURCHES (2024)
The world premiere of Okpebholo’s piece Two Black Churches was performed on Saturday, May 18, 2024 featuring acclaimed baritone Will Liverman. Co-commissioned with the Oakland Symphony Orchestra, the piece was a new orchestral arrangement that reflects on the racist attacks on the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, and the Mother Emanuel AME Church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015.
Past Saykaly Garbulinska Composers-in-Residence
2011-2012: Daniel Kellogg - How Radiant the Dawn
2013-2014: Adam Schoenberg - Canto
2015-2016: Avner Dorman - After Brahms
2017-2018: Chris Brubeck - No Borders: Concerto for Canadian Brass and Orchestra *
2021-2022: Duke Ellington arr. Marc Bolin - Queenie Pie Suite (commissioned arrangement)
2023-2024: Shawn E. Okpebholo - Two Black Churches for Baritone and Orchestra
*Featured on NPR’s Performance Today