BIO

Lavell Blackwell​​ earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Composition from New England Conservatory in May 2021, studying with Dr. Kati Agócs. His dissertation, The Long Walk for orchestra with found objects, received the Graduate Music Award from the Presser Foundation for the purposes of a professional recording. He was the most recent winner of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project’s composition competition for his chamber orchestra work Effleurage. His recent commissions include the piano trio Prelude and Counterpoint, premiered at the Curtis Institute of Music, the suite for saxophone duet Biosongs for the Jamaica Plain Saxophone Quartet which received a world premiere as part of the Boston New Music Festival in November 2020, and the solo oboe work Locrian Ambulations, which was commissioned by Nicholas Tisherman, Assistant Principal Oboist in the Colorado Symphony in Denver.

Additionally, he holds a Master of Music Degree from New England Conservatory where he studied with Malcolm Peyton, as well as an MFA in Musical Theater Writing from New York University. His chamber opera Far Away From America was chosen for the Warning: Not For Broadway Festival at Dixon Place, and his musical Keep On Walkin‘ earned the Anna Zornio Children’s Theater Playwriting Award. His music has also been performed as part of the New York Fringe Festival, the Emerging Artist Theater Festival, and the New York Theater Workshop.