Bernadette Speach is a musician first, but throughout her life, the pianist and composer has found herself taking on the role of educator. Over a more than 40-year career that started as a Sister of Saint Joseph of Carondelet and evolved into arts administrator and college professor, Speach has instilled in countless others the appreciation and passion for music that drives her distinctive sound.

Her latest project, the opera The Little Rock Nine, a collaboration with librettist Thulani Davis, tells the story of nine students, ages 14 and 15, who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957-58, forcing President Dwight D. Eisenhower to order U.S. troops of the 101st Airborne to protect them. In what has become her signature melding of musical styles, Speach bares the raw emotion of a pinnacle moment in U.S. history.

The Syracuse, New York, native earned a bachelor’s degree in music education from The College of Saint Rose. She studied in Italy and at Columbia University before landing under the tutelage of Morton Feldman at SUNY Buffalo. Studying alongside composers Lejaren Hiller and Leo Smit, she earned master’s and doctoral degrees in music composition.

Her work has been commissioned for numerous prestigious projects, including In and Out of Love, a work inspired by Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, for the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center in 2011. The resulting recording by Anthony de Mare for the ECM label earned a Grammy Award for producer Judith Sherman as Classical Producer of the Year. Other commissions include works for the iEAR Studios/Department of the Arts/ Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1989); National Endowment of the Arts (1992); Minnesota Composers Forum (1992); New York State Council on the Arts (1992); the Manhattan Neighborhood Network/The Kitchen Video Workshop (1995-96); percussionist Ricardo Souza (2004); and soprano Lauralyn Kolb (2005).

She received a fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts (1998-99); grants and awards from Margaret Fairbank Jory Copying Assistance Program (1989 and 1997), Arts Midwest (1993) and Meet the Composer (1985-01); and served as composer-in-residence at Brooklyn College’s Electracoustic Studio (2002). She was one of eight composers selected as a recipient of the Opera America 2023 Discovery Grants from its Opera Grants for Women Composers program, made possible with the generosity of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.

Speach complements her classical training with an avant-garde blend of jazz, and orchestral and choral elements, seamlessly melding sounds so each note seems at once perfectly placed and entirely organic. Her works have been performed by such notables as Orchestra Sinfonica del Conservatorio “Niccolo Piccinni”-direttore Giovanni Pelliccia; Ensemble Vocale “Forilegium Vocis” -Maestrao del coro Sabino Manzo, in Bari, Italy; Absolute Chamber Orchestra–conductor Kristjan Järvi; Arditti String Quartet; Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra–conductor Lukas Foss; pianist Anthony de Mare; Duo Avanzando; soprano Joan LaBarbara; saxophonist Oliver Lake; pianist Ursula Oppens; the Soldier String Quartet; and cellist Frances-Marie Uitti.

As an arts administrator, the patience and ability she demonstrates in her music, impeccably pacing herself, shines through, as she has led numerous organizations — including Composers’ Forum (1986-93), The Kitchen (1996-98) and Tannery Pond Center (2012-16) — through times of great transformation. She has taught at Darmstadt (1988), The New School (1994-98), CUNY-Brooklyn Conservatory of Music (2001-08, 2012-13), The College of Saint Rose (2009-14), and SUNY Adirondack (2017-20) and served as an adviser for numerous arts organizations around the country.

The Little Rock Nine reunites Speach with Davis, a Grammy Award winner for liner notes, and librettist, playwright, journalist, novelist, poet and screenwriter. Together, the pair redefined the art of poetry and music fusion. With such efforts as Telepathy Suite (1986-87), Baobab 4 (1994), Woman Without Adornment (1995), Passages and Outtakes (2000) and Meditations: Abandon All Hope of Fruition (2004), among others, Speach’s post-minimalistic jazz punctuates Davis’ considerable literary depth.

Critic Kyle Gann of The Voice said of their collaborations: "Speach and Davis have created a snug fit still loose enough to allow for the spontaneity of Davis's reading. And over the years their collaborations have shown how flexible and fertile their self-made genre can be.”