Sherry Blevins is an award-winning music educator, conductor/clinician, and
more recently, a lyricist and composer. She discovered her ability to compose
when on a whim, she offered to compose her first piece for the 2015 Durham All-
County Choir. That same piece, If You Heard My Voice for 2-part treble, piano,
and cello, was published in 2018. Since then, she has enjoyed composing for a
variety of singers and ensembles across North America. Past-President of the
American Choral Directors Association and Artistic Director of the Chattanooga
Boys Choir, Vincent Oakes writes, "Sherry Blevins’ music is as engaging and
enriching for the singer as it is enjoyable for the listener. Her writing is smart,
accessible, and well-balanced, advancing the aims of every text fortunate enough
to receive her musical treatment. With beautifully crafted melodies, tuneful
harmonies, and supportive accompaniments, her compositions should find a
preferred place with more choirs in the near future."

In 2018, she was selected the winner of the international Claremont Chorale’s
Composition Contest and is thrilled to announce that her winning composition, A
Tapestry of Music (SATB) was published in the fall of 2019 in Tesfa
Wondemagegnehu’s series. (The SSA version is already published with Hinshaw
Music, Inc.) She was recently honored to conduct A Tapestry of Music (SSA) for
the President’s Concert at the Southern Regional American Choral Director’s
Association Conference in Mobile, Alabama in March of 2020.

 
In the summers of 2018 and 2019, as her composing career was just beginning, she
was one of seven composers nationwide to be selected as a composing fellow at
the CORO Composer’s Institute in Iowa, where she premiered (now a Hinshaw
Music SATB release), Breath of Life. A newer release, I Dream of a World, was
recently selected for Editor's Choice on J.W. Pepper & Son, Inc., and was selected
as a featured piece for North Carolina’s Music in Our Schools Month as well as for
the National Association for Music Education’s Music in Our Schools Month
2020.

Many of her works including A Tapestry of Music, Watch Me Fly, Moment by
Moment, Fly Away, and others have been selected to be performed by many all-
state choirs since their publication. Sherry was especially elated when her TB
version of “If You Heard My Voice” was recently performed by The Viking Choir
or St. Olaf College under the direction of Tesfa Wondemagegnehu and her SATB
“A Tapestry of Music” was selected to be performed for the All-State Honor Choir
in her home state in North Carolina AND to be conducted in November, 2022 by
her former professor, Dr. Hilary Apfelstadt.

In a composing competition, one of her pieces, Illuminate the Night (SATB) was
selected to be performed by Santa Monica College Choirs in collaboration with
Chorosynthesis in June of 2020. Due to the impact of the Coronavirus, the live
performance was canceled. Instead, her piece was one of three selected to be
performed by a virtual choir in its stead. The music of these virtual performances is
described as Beethoven and Beyond: Breaking the Silence project and focuses on
music championing the work of those who leverage their disabilities to make the
world better.

In November of 2021, Sherry was invited by Dr. Jeremiah Selvey to attend Santa
Monica College's first post-pandemic performance as guest composer where five
of her works were performed and two were premiered. This winter, she will join
them again for a collaborative composing project and for the premiere of this new
work.

In 2020, at the height of the Coronavirus Pandemic, Sherry was delighted to
collaborate via Zoom on a composing project with Suzanne Fulton and each of the
choirs in The West Vancouver School’s Honour Choirs of British Columbia,
Canada. To date, two of these completed works have been published and more are
currently under consideration for publication. More recently, Sherry has been

invited to work with these choirs in person in the fall of 2022. In October she will
travel to West Vancouver to finally meet these wonderful people!
In 2022 she joined two more publishing houses that are publishing more of her
works. One is in a series by Jocelyn Hagen Music highlighting women composers
called “Compose Like a Girl”. The pieces in this new series include Looking for
Light (SSA) and If I Call to You, My Love (SATB). The Star Riddle (2-part treble)
by BriLee Music is a collaboration with her niece, Marian Blevins with poetry
written by Marian when she was 8 years old.
 
Sherry has a Bachelor’s degree in Music Education with a concentration in voice
from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a Master’s degree in
Music Education with a concentration in Choral Conducting from Appalachian
State University. She frequently serves as a clinician for honor choirs and leads
workshops on composing, conducting, choral techniques, and the motivation of
singers, across North America. She is currently a Supervisor of Student Teachers
for Appalachian State University where she was twice selected for the Outstanding
Adjunct Teaching Award for the College of Education. Sherry also enjoys teaching
private piano and voice lessons in her home studio in Huntersville, North Carolina
where she lives with her wife, Ruth and their beloved pets. Her hope is that
whether through composing or teaching, that the music she shares will bring hope,
life, and light to others.