Grace O’Duffy is an Irish-American composer and choral music educator, studying at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. O’Duffy entered the world of composition through a mentorship program with the Dublin Youth Choir during the pandemic lockdown. In 2021, she won the Irish National Feis Ceoil Choral Composition Competition, and worked with Chamber Choir Ireland on two choral pieces, including “Little Alleluia,” now published by Hal Leonard. She has since collaborated with a variety of ensembles on commission works across Tennessee, Michigan, Connecticut, and more. Her newest work, “Song of Tomorrow,” commissioned for the 20th Anniversary of the Belfast Philharmonic Youth Choir, was performed by the Belfast Philharmonic Youth Choirs, Dublin Youth Choirs, and Belfast Philharmonic Orchestra in May.
In addition to being a full time student, O’Duffy teaches choir and piano at the W.O. Smith Music School, a non-profit after-school music program in Nashville. She will graduate from the Vanderbilt Peabody College with a master’s in choral music education in 2027.
choral music
Eily, Eily (2025)
SATB
Little Alleluia (2021)
SATB
Rise Up, My Love (2022)
SATB
new release
The Stolen Child
text by W.B. Yeats
W. B. Yeats’ poem The Stolen Child is a captivating retelling of the Irish folklore myth of the “changeling.” In this story, a fairy would kidnap an infant or young child, replacing it with one of its own kind. It has been suggested that the myth of the changeling was sometimes used as a means of processing grief over the death of an infant, or the birth of a child with disabilities.
The prelude and three movements that comprise this work narrate the increasingly animated attempts of the fairies to lure a child away from his family, into the spirit world. The melodic content is largely inspired by Irish folk music, while the harmonic language conveys something more otherworldly; dreamlike and dissonant.
Premiered at the Blair School of Music, 2026.
chamber music
dream window: wild Atlantic (2023)
flute, cello, piano
Evensong (2023)
voice, tenor sax, electronics
Nothing/Everything (2022)
flute, viola, bassoon, bass
new release
white oaks/wind chimes
I am not sure if I believe in ghosts, but there is certainly something special about standing in a
place long inhabited by ancestors. My American side of the family spent generations in
Massachusetts, and though I have never been more than a visitor there (albeit a regular one), I feel a sense of profound homecoming each time I re-encounter the familiar dirt roads that lead to the lake there. When the wind chimes ring through the soft summer air, I like to imagine that they are moved by ghosts, friendly spirits of great grandparents and distant aunts and uncles.
This piece imagines an encounter between those wind chimes and a mystery spirit, where reality is swept up in memory and imagination. They enter a kind of dance that breathes and flows like wind.
Premiered at the Blair School of Music, 2026.
projects
Vanderbilt Choral Scholars: Missa Avitium
In May of 2024, the Vanderbilt Choral Scholars travelled to Liverpool and Leeds for ten days for the intense study of choral music in the English tradition. ‘Missa Avitium’ was commissioned for the project and performed at a service at the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. The three-movement mass is inspired by birdsong: melodic whistles and calls echo gently throughout the space, becoming the base of the motivic material for the work.
Wesleyan Collegium Musicum: Lux Æterna
‘Lux Æterna’ was a collaboration with the Collegium Musicum at Wesleyan University. The commissioned piece was premiered in May 2023 at the concert, “Gealdorcha, Sung Rituals in Celtic Light and Shadow.” The work was created around the themes of the project, with the score formatted graphically in the shape of a Celtic cross, and featuring imagery from the carvings at Newgrange, the Neolithic Tomb in Ireland which fills with light only on Winter Solstice.