Blake Clawson is a composer, performer, conductor, and educator from the Pacific Northwest. His music weaves contemporary classical, jazz, and folk influences into colorful and expressive pieces that captivate listeners. He draws inspiration from poetry and nature, and while choral works on the pensive and Arcadian poems of Sara Teasdale are central to his output, he also writes chamber works that range from scintillating and groovy to introspective and serene.

Blake serves as the music director of Renova New Music Ensemble, University of Colorado Boulder’s student-run new music choir. He has written for and collaborated with a wide variety of ensembles, including the effervescent ~Nois saxophone quartet, who premiered his work Boomerang in 2023. Blake’s choral work Fantasy Arabesque was selected as the winner of the 2019 Opus 7 Robert Scandrett Memorial Composition Award and was performed in Seattle by Opus 7 Vocal Ensemble, directed by Loren Pontén. His orchestral rhapsody Matara was selected as the winner of the 2020 Whitworth University Concerto Competition and was performed by the Whitworth Orchestra under the direction of Philip Baldwin.

Blake is currently pursuing a dual Master’s in Music Composition and Choral Conducting at the University of Colorado Boulder. He has studied composition with Annika Socolofsky, Carter Pann, and Brent Edstrom, and choral conducting with Karen Grylls and Marc Hafso. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Music Composition from Whitworth University and has studied at the University of Auckland.