Jennifer Higdon was born on December 31, 1962, in Brooklynn, New York. She started learning how to play the flute when she was fifteen years. She advanced her studies in music B.M. in flute performance at Bowling Green State University, an M.A. and Ph.D. in composition at the University of Pennsylvania, and an Artist Diploma at the Curtis Institute of Music. Some of her composition teachers were George Crumb and Ned Rorem. After completing her studies, Higdon settled in Pennsylvania and began composing music at 21 years old. Her first works include When Souls Meet (1982) and The Jeffrey Mode (1984). In 1994 she joined the faculty at Curtis Institute of Music, and she was later promoted to professor in 2001. While as a teacher, Higdon started to produce significant works, and in 1995, Shine, her second orchestral work, premiered at the 1996 Indiana State University's Festival of Contemporary Music and was awarded USA Today's award for Best Contemporary Piece.
Higdon has won several awards like Artist's Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (2000), Composer-in-Residence at the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music (2002), and Composer of the Year from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (2005) because of her excellent composing music. In 2010, Higdon received the Pulitzer prize for his music, Violin Concerto, a 2010 Grammy for her Percussion Concerto, a 2018 Grammy for her Viola Concerto, a 2020 Grammy for her Harp Concerto, and she has featured composer in several festivals like Aspen, Tanglewood, Vail, Norfolk, Grand Teton, and Cabrillo. Higdon is currently alive and her orchestral performance, blue cathedral, is her most performed work, with over 600 performances since its premiere in 2000.
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