Jennifer Butler is a composer, educator, and flutist living in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her music, described as “beautifully remote” (Vancouver Sun), “intimate” (Globe and Mail), and “disquieting” (Vancouver Observer), has been commissioned, performed, and broadcast across Canada, in the United States, Australia, and Europe. Jennifer especially loves writing for voices and collaborating with writers and poets. She often works with quiet and fragile sounds, but will juxtapose these with forceful outbursts of sound. Silence, colour, organic change, and layered textures are important qualities in many of her compositions.

Jennifer has been commissioned and performed by outstanding ensembles such as the Vancouver Symphony, The Emily Carr String Quartet, the Vancouver Island Symphony, BradyWorks (Montreal), Blueridge Chamber Music Festival (Vancouver), Continuum Contemporary Music (Toronto), The Victoria Symphony, the Western Front (Vancouver), Redshift (Vancouver), the Vancouver Intercultural Orchestra, The Kingston Symphony, The Motion Ensemble (Seattle), Vancouver New Music, L’Ensemble Lunatik (Quebec), Saskatoon Symphony Players, the Okanagan Symphony, Ottawa New Music Collective, and Aventa (Victoria).

Recent projects include: This is Winter, a commission for mezzo-soprano and string orchestra, for the Vancouver Island Symphony with Marion Newman; The Stakes Have Never Been Higher, a commission from Redshift and the Vertical Orchestra for 30 percussionists; Walking in the Public Gardens After Rain, with poetry by Rae Crossman and commissioned by the Blueridge Chamber Music Festival; Songs for Klee Wyck, commissioned by Victoria’s Emily Carr String Quartet; The End of the World (or else the beginning), commissioned by the Vancouver Intercultural Orchestra for flutist Mark McGregor and the Borealis String Quartet; and The Stars Have Closed Their Eyes, commissioned by Bradyworks for electric-guitar quartet and mezzo-soprano.

In the fall of 2023, Jennifer released her first portrait album, One More Way to See, on Redshift Records. To celebrate this release, Vancouver’s Music on Main presented a concert dedicated to her music at their 2023 Modulus Festival.

As both a composer and a performer, Jennifer often collaborates with other artists on multi-disciplinary projects. Since 2002 she has been collaborating with CURV, an experimental interdisciplinary ensemble with composer-performers Kristy Farkas and Marci Rabe. In April 2007, CURV was commissioned by Continuum Contemporary Music to create and perform 20 Silent Words, an hour-long piece incorporating sound, text, movement and image. One of her major artistic influences has been her participation, between 2000-2016, in R. Murray Schafer’s annual interdisciplinary wilderness project And Wolf Shall Inherit the Moon.

Jennifer completed her Bachelor of Music degree from Wilfrid Laurier University and holds both a Master’s degree and Doctorate in music composition from the University of British Columbia. Passionate about teaching music as a creative subject, she was the Composer Mentor for the Okanagan Symphony’s Young Composer Program from 2021-2024, worked as a teaching artist for Vancouver Opera from 2019-2022, and was the Composer-in-Residence for Vancouver’s Sonic Boom festival in 2022.

Being an active member of the music community is also a high priority. She is the past Chair for the Advisory Board of the BC region of the Canadian Music Centre (2019-2024) and continues to sit on the CMC National board as chair of the Composer Committee. She also sits on the boards of Redshift Musicvand Standing Wave Ensemble. Jennifer was the first female President of the Canadian League of Composers, from 2011-14 and was also on the Advisory Committee for the ISCM World New Music Days which was presented in Vancouver in 2017.

Jennifer lives in East Vancouver with her husband and two kids.

Under Bleak Skies by Jennifer Butler; Aventa Ensemble

Four Directions by Jennifer Butler; Mark Takeshi McGregor, flute

The End of the World (or else the beginning) by Jennifer Butler

As Ordinary As Stars by Jennifer Butler; Dorothea Hayley soprano