Bio

D’Arcy Reynolds is a prestigious and prolific award-winning composer and pianist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Drawing upon influences from North Indian Ragas, South African field recordings, Cuban and Puerto Rican montunos, jazz, and tango, her compositions reflect her keen interest in World Musics. D’Arcy studied North Indian Raga with Pandit Pran Nath and improvisation with Terry Riley. She toured South Africa with the Sontonga Quartet on a Meet the Composer Global Connections grant and was featured in the DVD ‘Inner Landscape’ filmed in Nieu Bethesda at Helene Martin’s Owl House.

Numerous ensembles, including the San Jose Chamber Orchestra, Ariel String Quartet, Chamberlain String Quartet, Adesso, The Picasso Ensemble, and New Music Works have performed her chamber music. Her work has been represented at several new music festivals, including the Festival of New American Music at California State University at Sacramento, the Nevada County Composers’ Coalition New Music Festivals, Derriere Guard Festival, and Music in the Mountains in Nevada City.

She has received commissions from the American Composers Forum, Noe Valley
Chamber Music and Tessa Brinckman & the East/West Continuo, and has received grants and awards from the ASCAP, USIA, the American Music Center, and Meet the Composer. Her CD the Past Keeps Changing was awarded the Music Now Recording Grant in 2000.

In the last several years, D’Arcy’s interest in world music has led her to explore Cuban and Puerto Rican folk music and latin jazz. These influences are found in her compositions, Latin Carnival and Jardin Cubano. Several performers have requested arrangements, so these pieces are now available for woodwinds, strings, and piano trio.

In the summers of 2017 and 2018, D’Arcy attended the Tango for Musicians workshop at Reed College, under the tutelage of several Argentinian composers and performers (Tango Sin Fin of Buenos Aires). Her composition, Tangria, a four-movement suite for piano trio in the tango style, was premiered in Berkeley at the Sonic Harvest in October of 2018.

In addition to her work as a composer and pianist, Ms. Reynolds founded the San
Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the American Composers Forum. The Chapter became an important arts organization for artists throughout Northern California, and as Director of the San Francisco Chapter, Ms. Reynolds developed innovative programs for composers and performers, developed and managed a Composer in the Schools Program in Bay Area High Schools, scheduled salons with new works by Northern Californian Composers and administered interdisciplinary granting programs with composers, poets and choreographers.

D’Arcy has taught piano, composition, and theory for over 25 years, including classes at the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts, the San Francisco Community Music Center, and Marin Country Day School. Her Northern California composer residencies have included the San Francisco School of the Arts, Magnolia Intermediate, Peninsula Middle Schools, and Chabot Elementary School. The hallmark of her fun, yet rigorous teaching style, is her adaptability to students’ interests and the integration of Buddhist insight methods that tap into their creativity.

Ms. Reynolds earned a B. A. with honor and an M.A. in music from Mills College, where she received the Paul Merritt Henry Prize for excellence in composition. Her composition teachers have included Andrew Imbrie, Terry Riley, Charles Shere, and Emilio Solla.