Liam Moore was born in 1989 in Menomonie, Wisconsin, but grew up in Albert Lea, Minnesota. From a young age he heard his parents playing The Beatles, Harry Nilsson, The Chieftains, Beethoven, Mozart, and Bartok on the phonograph and the piano. The music would go in his ears and go out his mouth; he had a hard time keeping quiet. Piano lessons didn’t pan out, so when he was 8 his parents decided to sign him up for a youth choir. He has been singing in choirs ever since and has also played violin, cello, guitar and bass in ensembles.

Inspired by the wonderful music teachers he had growing up (Eileen Nelson Ness, Betsy Anderson, Gene Schott, and Diane Heaney), Moore enrolled in the University of Wisconsin in Madison to pursue a degree in music education. After a couple of years at the university, he realized that becoming a teacher was not the appropriate fit and started exploring the university’s composition program. Moore had written only folk music and some small choral compositions, but he was somehow able to sneak his way into the composition department. Under the guidance of Stephen Dembski and Laura Schwendinger, Moore started to get the hang of writing music in the Euro-American Concert Tradition. In May 2013, he received his BA in music composition from the UW-Madison. While at the UW, he also studied sound design and electronic music with Joseph Koykkar, piano with Sung-Ho Yang, voice with Julia Faulkner, and conducting with Bruce Gladstone.

Moore writes mostly for chamber ensembles and choirs, and also occasionally writes music for film, dance, and other visual and performing arts. Besides singing and playing piano, cello, violin, bass, and guitar, he also plays the trombone quite poorly. Currently, Moore is transcribing songs of the late American composer Ernst Bacon to ready them for publication, and he is also working with a colleague on a piece that explores direct audio-to-video translation. He lives in St. Paul, MN.

Visit the Composer’s Website