Perry Townsend

​Perry Townsend is a composer and performer, whose work has been hailed as “a journey through sounds rich in surprises.” His music can be heard on American Modern Recordings and Ravello Records, and has been performed at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, Steinway Hall, Tenri Cultural Institute, and Roulette. He has been commissioned by Bowdoin International Music Festival and Barbad Chamber Orchestra, and has premiered works at the ppIANISSIMO Festival in Sofia, Bulgaria, and the Fontainebleau Summer Festival. As a conductor, he leads the Angelic Voices Youth Chorus, Community Singers of Queens, Immaculate Conception Contemporary Ensemble, and is Music Director at Incarnation parish in Hollis, NY. As a vocalist, he has sung with the Choir of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin and Canticum Novum. He received an MA in composition from Copland School of Music, studying with Thea Musgrave, and a BM from N.C. School of the Arts, studying with Sherwood Shaffer. Currently, Perry is working with acclaimed mezzo Tichina Vaughn to create an opera about Christine Miller, the lone dissenter at Jim Jones’ Guyana commune in 1978.