Composer and pianist Courtney Bryan is the Albert and Linda Mintz Professor of Music at Newcomb College in the School of Liberal Arts, Tulane University, Composer in Residence with Opera Philadelphia, and a Creative Partner with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. Bryan has academic degrees from Oberlin Conservatory (BM), Rutgers University (MM), and Columbia University (DMA) with advisor George Lewis, and completed postdoctoral studies in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. She was the 2018 music recipient of the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, a 2018 Hermitage Fellow, a 2019-20 recipient of the Samuel Barber Rome Prize in Music Composition, and a 2020 United States Artists Fellow.