B i o g r a p h y
Amy Scurria is a multi-award-winning composer whose work continues to be performed worldwide, including on the Perlman Stage at Carnegie Hall and by the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Kimmel Center. This fall, Scurria's music will be included at the Swedish opening of Parliament with guest speaker, Bishop Marianne Edgar Budde.
Late-diagnosed as autistic, Scurria began composing at age 8, with music serving as her primary language for exploring emotion and experience. Her creative process blends improvisation, movement, and a vivid internal ear—techniques shaped by her unique neurodivergent perspective.
In 1998, she became the youngest composer published by Theodore Presser Company, and later founded her own publishing house, Adamo Press. She studied at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University (B.M.), Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins (M.M.), Duke University (PhD), La Schola Cantorum (now EAMA), and the Aspen Music Festival.
Scurria's music has been supported by such grants as the Thomas D. Dee, II Endowment Grant, the NC Arts Council, Evan Frankel Fellowship, Aleane Webb Dissertation Research Award, and the Duke University Summer Research Fellowship.
Scurria has held residencies with the NYC Wind Band Festival at Carnegie Hall (2 years), University of Utah, Red River Lyric Opera Festival, Collective Euphonia, and Shepherd College.
A strong advocate for the autistic community, Scurria has been featured on podcasts and in articles and continues to conduct presentations wherever possible to raise awareness about the truth of the autistic community, to fight against the misinformation and myths about us, and to present autism through the lens of any other existence: one filled with joy, complexity, humanity, and diversity, dispelling the myths that we are a community to be cured or extinguished.
Scurria’s music does not recount trauma, but asserts survival as a source of power—and art. Her latest opera, A.L.I.C.E., created with her partner and librettist Zane Corriher, was composed almost entirely without piano—direct from mind to page. Zane and Amy have partnered with acclaimed director, Amy Hutchison to present A.L.I.C.E. at main stages. She was recently commissioned to write a choral work (Inside) based on her lived experience as an autistic artist. Her work dismantles old narratives and reclaims sound as a tool for radical transformation.