Described as “taut, focused… colourful” by Gramophone, “mesmerizing,” by critic Tim Smith, and “especially glorious… ethereal” by Whole Note, the music of Canadian composer Tawnie Olson draws inspiration from politics, spirituality, the natural world,
and the musicians for whom she composes. Her opera Sanctuary and Storm (libretto by Roberta Barker) is the winner of the 2021-2023 National Opera Association Dominick Argento Chamber Opera Competition, and was premiered by Vancouver Opera and re:Naissance Opera in November, 2023. Olson is also the winner of the 2018 Barlow Prize, a consortium commission for the BYU Singers, The Crossing, and Seraphic Fire, and of a 2019 Copland House Residency Award. She was the Composer-in-Residence of the 2018 Women Composers Festival of Hartford.

Olson’s music is performed on five continents; it can also be heard on recordings by The Crossing, percussionist Ian David Rosenbaum, oboist Mélanie Harel, Parthenia viol consort (with bass-baritone Dashon Burton), the Yale Schola Cantorum and Elm City Girls Choir, bassoonist Rachael Elliott, the Canadian Chamber Choir, Chronos Vocal Ensemble, soprano Magali Simard-Galdès, clarinetist Shawn Earle, oboist Catherine Lee, and Shawn Mativetsky, McGill University professor of tabla and percussion. Her scores are available from the Canadian Music Centre, E.C. Schirmer, Galaxy Music, Hal Leonard’s BandQuest and Mark Foster series, and Oxford University Press.