Called a “bright wom[a]n with big ideas” (Souls in Action), Colorado-based composer Loretta K. Notareschi (b. 1977) seeks to create “compassion” (303 Magazine) and connection through her “powerful” (The Denver Post) and “deeply personal” (5280 Magazine) music. Whether writing for string quartet or symphony orchestra, church congregations or classical ukulele, she seeks to “connec[t] with the audience” (303 Magazine) and move listeners with music of meaning.

Born in Canton, Ohio and raised in Stillwater, Oklahoma, composer Loretta Notareschi is a professor of music at Regis University and a summer faculty member of The Walden School Creative Musicians Retreat. She received master’s and doctoral degrees in composition from the University of California at Berkeley, a bachelor’s of music in composition from the University of Southern California, and the General Diploma from the Zoltán Kodály Pedagogical Institute of Music in Kecskemèt, Hungary, where she was a Fulbright Scholar.

Notareschi’s music has been performed on four continents in venues ranging from small country churches to Carnegie Hall. She has received awards and grants from Chamber Music America, American Composers Forum, the Cincinnati Camerata, IronWorks Percussion Duo, and the GALA Choruses, and in October 2016, she was a TEDxMileHigh speaker. Her primary teachers in composition have included Morten Lauridsen, Erica Muhl, Rick Lesemann, Cindy Cox, and Jorge Liderman, and her music is published by Disegni Music, Friedrich Hofmeister, Bachovich, and the Unitarian Universalist Association.