Nancy Laird Chance
American composer
Nancy Laird Chance (born March 19, 1931) is an American pianist and composer. She studied at Bryn Mawr College from 1949 to 1950 and Columbia University from 1959 to 1967 with Vladimir Ussachevsky, Otto Luening and Chou Wen-chung.
After completing her studies, Chance worked as a piano teacher, composer and arts administrator. She received the ASCAP/Nissim prize for orchestral composition in 1981 for Liturgy and in 1984 for Odysseus. She also received two awards from the NEA, and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and Sundance Film for composition in 1988. Her works have been performed at venues such as the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and Carnegie Hall. Laird Chance lived and taught in Kenya from 1974-1978.
Works
Selected works include:
Liturgy, for orchestra, 1979
Odysseus, suite for orchestra, 1983
Planasthai, for orchestra, 1991
Darksong, for chamber ensemble, 1972
Edensong, for chamber ensemble, 1973
Daysongs, for chamber ensemble, 1974
Ritual Sounds, for chamber ensemble, 1975
Ceremonial, for chamber ensemble, 1976
Declamation and Song, for chamber ensemble, 1977
Duos II, oboe, English horn, 1978
Duos III, violin, violincello, 1980
Exultation and Lament, sax, timpany, 1980
Solemnities, 1981
Woodwind Quintet, 1983
Rhapsodia, 1984
String Quartet, no.1, 1984–5
Elegy, string orchestra, 1986
Heat and Silence, 1989
Domine, Dominus, motet, double chorus unaccompanied, 1964
Odysseus, chorus and orchestra, 1981–3
In Paradisium, 1986–7, chorus and chamber ensemble, 1987
Pie Jesu, Libera me, Hosanna and Benedictus, chorus and chamber ensemble, 1990
3 Rilke Songs, Soprano, flute, English horn, violincello, 1966
Duos I, Soprano, flute, 1975
Say the Good Words, violin, synth, 1989
Last Images, film, 1988
Her music has been recorded and issued on CD by Opus One.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Nancy Laird Chance” as american composer. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american composer. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q6962792. VIAF identifies the subject as 33392446. The Library of Congress control number is n84040518. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1931, 1949, 1950 and 1959.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nancy Laird Chance” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.