Betty R. Wishart

Betty R. Wishart and music are synonymous. Her earliest memories involve singing in church choirs and playing the piano. She was introduced to contemporary music while studying with Richard Bunger at Queens University. At the end of her junior year, she wrote her first composition, submitted it to a music fraternity and was invited to perform a mini-recital of her music at their international conference. That event inspired her to continue composing while earning an M.M. degree in piano performance at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While pursuing further study in piano and composition in New York City, she accepted and won a challenge from a writer to see who could get published first.

Since those early years, her music has been performed in France, Italy, Greece, Germany, Russia, South Korea, and throughout the United States at festivals, universities, concert halls, and conferences of the Society of Composers Inc., National Association of Composers USA, International Alliance of Women in Music, American Pen Women, Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers, Delta Omicron, and the Southeastern Composers’ League.

Her premiere solo album PIANO SONORITIES was described as “an utterly beguiling collection of piano music” (Classical Nowhere) while Fanfare said, “Wishart’s music demands attention and holds it.” She has written a wide variety of music including instrumental solos, chamber ensemble, vocal, and orchestral. Concertante No.1….Journey into the Unknown is included on PASSAGE (Navona) and Stress was included on Ovidu Martinescu’s Moto Virtuo concert (PARMA). Other instrumental music has been recorded on Capstone, Sarton, and PHASMA.

Wishart has been artist-in-residence at Weymouth Center for the Arts, received awards from the National League of American Pen Women, ASCAP, American College of Musicians, and three Regional Artist Project Grants from the Arts Council of Fayetteville and Cumberland County. In 2019 she received the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award in Music.