A recipient of the Masterworks Prize, Stoop's song, "The Shepherd and the Night Sky" was recorded by members of the Kiev Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chamber Choir Kyiv. It is available from ERMMedia on a compilation CD entitled Holidays of the New Era. In May 2007 "maggie and milly and molly and may," setting the E.E. Cummings poem for chorus, flute and piano, was awarded First Prize in the Berkshire Children's Chorus Composition Competition. It was performed in Great Barringteon, MA and Atlanta, GA of that month. In 2002 her choral work, "Prayer for Peace: E Pluribus Unum," was awarded the distinction of honors by the Waging Peace Through Singing competition, sponsored by the University of Oregon. Among other awards, in 1998 Stoop was a finalist in the American Romanian Team for the Arts Young Composers Contest, and her string quintet, "Before and After the End," was performed in Romania by the Black Sea Philharmonic. In 1997 she received a commission to write a work for "Door Eendracht Sterk" Fanfare Band of Hedel, The Netherlands. "Hedels Fanfare," scored for a sixty-piece brass band, was performed in October of that year in Hedel, to commemorate the band's one hundred year anniversary.
Margaret Collins Stoop, the founding director of the Adesso Choral Society of Ridgefield, CT, is a composer whose works have been performed throughout Europe and the United States. Most recent performances of her work include: "Moody Morning," for solo piano, at the LICA Students Concert at the Freeport Memorial Library, March 29, 2009; "The Shepherd and the Night Sky," for solo singer, SAB chorus, flute and piano by the Newtown Choral Society on Dec.7, 2008; "Gnosis," for chorus, vibraphone and marimba at the Society of Composers, Inc. New Music Festival in Queens, NY on November 16 and November 28, 2007; "Lonesome Flute: Fantasy on a Native American Theme," in Helwett, NY at the Long Composers Alliance Concert on September 25, 2007; "Time Pieces," five short works for solo piano, in South Windsor, CT at the Connecticut Composers, Inc. Concert on September 9, 2007. Stoop serves as president of Connecticut Composers, Inc. and is a board member of the Ridgefield Arts Council. She is also a member of LICA, SCI, ASCAP, CFAMC and AMC.
Stoop began her formal music education at the age of sixteen with a scholarship to the preparatory division of the Mannes College of Music, where she studied flute with Laurel Zucker. In 1989, she graduated from Smith College cum laude, with the special distinction of High Honors in Music for her thesis, On the Horizontal and Vertical in Selected Works by Schoenberg and Webern. Her primary instructors at Smith were John Sessions, Donald Wheelock and Ronald Perera. In 1990 and 1991 she resided in Hong Kong, where she studied Chinese flutes and folk music at the Yuet Wah Music School, and western flute privately with Timothy Wilson, a former member of the Hong Kong Philharmonic. In 1998, Stoop received her master's degree in music composition from the Aaron Copland School of Music of the City University of New York, where she studied under Thea Musgrave. She has pursued further compositional study with Robert Carl of the Hartt School of Music. In addition to composing and directing the Adesso Choral Society, Stoop teaches music theory at the Westport School of Music, music appreciation and history with Ridgefield Adult Education, piano at the Westport Music Center, and maintains a private studio where she teaches flute, piano, theory and composition. email: megcollins@stoop.org