Jennifer Butler

Vancouver based composer Jennifer Butler has been commissioned, performed, and broadcast across Canada, in the United States, Australia, and Europe. Her music has been described as “beautifully remote” (Vancouver Sun), “intimate” (Globe and Mail), and “disquieting” (Vancouver Observer). 

Recent projects have included: Erased/Erasing (2025) written for pianist John Burge; Hear Me (2025) written for SJ Kirsch and the Sonic Boom Festival; The Stakes Have Never Been Higher (2024) for percussion ensemble; This is Winter (2023), commissioned by the Vancouver Island Symphony for mezzo-soprano Marion Newman, and Songs for Klee Wyck (2022), a song cycle commissioned by the Emily Carr String Quartet. 

Currently Jennifer is working on a new work for flute ensemble to be presented in Portland this summer and the National Flute Association convention and a large collaboration with poet/actor Peter Anderson and the Turning Point Ensemble. 

In November 2023, Music on Main presented a portrait concert of her music to mark the release of her first album, One More Way to See (Redshift Records). One of her most sustained influences was her participation from 2000 to 2016 in R. Murray Schafer’s operatic wilderness project entitled … And Wolf Shall Inherit the Moon. 

Jennifer joined the Faculty of the UBC School of Music as a Lecturer in Composition in September 2024. She has also worked as a teaching artist for Vancouver Opera and Composer Mentor for the Okanagan Symphony, and was the Composer-in-Residence for Vancouver’s Sonic Boom festival in 2022. Jennifer currently lives in East Vancouver with her husband and two kids. 

https://redshiftmusicsociety.bandcamp.com/album/one-more-way-to-see