Dr. Heather Gilligan

Heather Gilligan oversees the areas of composition, theory, and aural skills at Keene State College. She teaches Composition, Music Theory I-IV, Counterpoint, Analytical Techniques, and Orchestration, and she is the director of the Contemporary Ensemble.

She is an active composer whose chamber, orchestral, and vocal works have been performed across the United States. Two of her newest works, "Southern Dissonance: Portraits of a New South" for vocal quartet & percussion and "Rhapsody" for violin & piano, were named as Finalists in the 2023 American Prize competition in the instrumental chamber music division, vocal chamber music division, and social justice category. Her music has been performed recently by the Truman State University Orchestra in Missouri, Concerts on the Slope in Brooklyn, the Women’s Festival of Hartford, the Los Angeles-based Kaleidoscope Orchestra, the New York City SongSLAM Festival, and the Juventas Ensemble of Boston.

As a composer, she seeks to write music that is edgy and lyrical, both direct and compassionate while exploring the limits of emotion from humor to anguish. Her album of vocal chamber music, Living in Light, was released by Albany Records with critical acclaim. Jonathan Blumhofer (The Arts Fuse) described it as “a new album that capably demonstrates that the art song is not only alive and well but thriving in the early decades of the 21st century.”

Dr. Gilligan received her DMA in Composition from Boston University, where she won the Malloy Miller Prize in Composition, a Dean’s Scholarship, and a Department Honor Award. She earned her MM in Composition from the Longy School of Music and she holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Lehigh University.