Michelle Frida Green Willner

Michelle Green Willner

Dr. Michelle Green Willner has a B.M. degree from the University of Toronto and her M.A. and D.M.A. degrees in Music (Composition) from Columbia University. Dr. Green Willner’s awards include five ASCAP Special Awards, two ASCAP Foundation Grants to Young Composers, Community Relations Council Grant, Brian M. Israel Prize (Society for New Music), SOCAN’s Serge Garant Award, Shalshelet’s 6th International Festival of New Jewish Liturgical Music (2016), and the WORD Grant 2016: The Bruce Geller Memorial Prize. Dr. Green Willner has also been granted fellowships at June in Buffalo, the Wellesley Composers Conference, CSULB, ASCAP/Fred Karlin Film Scoring Workshop, Mellon Foundation (Columbia University) and the President's Fellow (Columbia University).  Her works have been commissioned and performed by the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony, NACUSA Concert Series, Synergy, Shechina, the UCI Women's Chorus, Speculum Musicae, New Millennium, the New Calliope Singers, Premier, the Society for New Music, the CSULB New Music Ensemble, and by Earplay at the Center for the Arts Forum in San Francisco. Dr. Green Willner's choral works have been performed internationally by various choruses as well as exclusively by the Tehila Choir, which she founded in Toronto, Canada (1984-1989), Mit Gezang, which she directed from 1999-2003 in Los Angeles, the Kol Ruach Ensemble, which she directed from 2003-2006, and by the Michelle Green Willner Singers which she is currently directing. Dr. Green Willner has taught composition and theory at the University of California, Irvine, California State University at Long Beach and the University of Judaism. 

Michelle Green Willner’s works have been commissioned and performed internationally by ensembles such as North/South Consonance (2018), NACUSA, Synergy, Los Angeles Jewish Symphony, Hollywood Master Chorale, American Cantors’ Association, Shechina, UCI Women’s Chorus, Speculum Musicae, New Millennium, New Calliope Singers, Premier, Society for New Music, CSULB New Music Ensemble, Kol Haemek Chorale, Earplay at Center for the Arts Forum, San Francisco, 2017 Unsung Festival, LA Choreographers and Dancers and Zimriya, Israel’s International Choral Festival. With her love for artistic collaborations, for the past year and a half, Green Willner has been involved in a multi-disciplinary collaboration with international visual/performance artist Doni Silver Simons. Their work, titled Reverberations, was performed for the Anniversary of Kristallnacht at the Museum of Tolerance, and selected performed at the 2017 Jerusalem Biennale. Their performance, Fragments, was presented by More Art Here, held in conjunction with the prestigious 2018 Art Los Angeles Contemporary. Many choruses have performed Dr. Green Willner’s choral works internationally, as well as exclusively by the Tehila Choir, which she founded in Toronto, Canada (1984-1989), Mit Gezang, which she directed from 1999-2003 in Los Angeles, the Kol Ruach Ensemble, which she directed from 2003-2006, and by the Michelle Green Willner Singers, which she is currently directing. Dr. Green Willner has given talks and lectures at More Art Here, Voices of LA, Cantors Assembly of America, the Nowakowsky International Jewish Choral Festival, SF's Center for the Arts Forum, CSULB, 92nd St.Y, Board of Jewish Education of Toronto, and has taught composition and theory at the University of California, Irvine, California State University at Long Beach and the American Jewish University. She has also been a Contributor/Advisor for the website, L.A. Opening Nights. Currently, as well as composing, Dr. Green Willner is the Artistic and Musical Director of the Los Angeles Jewish Community Children’s Choir (jewishchildrenschoir.com), sponsored by the Jewish Federation and the Schulweis Institute, as well as supported, in part, by the LA County Board of Supervisors through the LA County Arts Commission. She is also the Musical Director of the Sinai Temple Youth Choir. Dr. Green Willner is currently a Max Helfman Music Fellow, and was selected to be a Creative Inquiry Fellow for both 2016 and 2017.

Dissertation
Jephthah's Daughter. (Original composition)
Columbia Degrees: 
DMA, Composition
1994