Sarah Gibson, emerging pianist and composer, dies at 38

She had nearly completed her new piece, titled “Beyond the Beyond,” for its world premiere, but became too ill to finish it in time. Instead, the BBC Philharmonic is scheduled to perform an earlier composition by Ms. Gibson, “Warp & Weft” (2021) for large orchestra, on August 8. The world premiere of “Beyond the Beyond” will take place at a BBC-sponsored concert in 2025, in a version completed by a friend and longtime colleague, the composer and pianist Thomas Kotcheff.

It’s expensive to create a work for a full orchestra, and most of Gibson’s early works were for small groups — “Sea Monkey” (2010), “Sure Baby, Mañana” (2016), “Outsider“ (2017) and “I prefer to live in color” (2017). Ms. Gibson also created a chamber arrangement of Afro-British pop musician Laura Mvula’s “She.” (Her musical works have often been inspired by the work of visual artists, many of them women.)

In 2022, Gibson was commissioned by the League of American Orchestras to write the piece “to make this mountain taller.” The piece has since premiered with the Sarasota Orchestra in Florida, with further performances to follow.

“A commission that gives you a platform like this, with a confirmed premiere and multiple performances, is just huge,” Ms. Gibson told music writer Nancy Malitz. “It’s generally much easier to get your smaller pieces performed, and it’s just plain impractical to write a full orchestral piece if you’re just writing hoping that it would be played, no matter how much you would like to scratch that itch.”

Sarah Elizabeth Gibson was born in Spartanburg, SC, on May 21, 1986, and grew up in the Atlanta suburb of Roswell. Her father was a pension plan salesman and her mother was a homemaker.

She began piano lessons at age 7 and was pianist and principal keyboardist for the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra in her teens. In 2004, music critic Pierre Ruhe in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution praised her six-minute concerto for cello and strings, “Summer’s Breath.” Ms. Gibson, he noted, “creates moments of striking elegance and flair, particularly in her orchestral compositions — a serious talent to watch.”

She received a dual bachelor’s degree in piano performance and music composition from Indiana University in 2008. She received a master’s degree (2010) and doctorate (2015) in composition from the University of Southern California..

Besides her husband, whom she married in 2014, other survivors include her son Benjamin Fullerton, her parents Joseph Gibson and the former Beth Medlin of Johns Creek, Georgia, and a brother.

With Kotcheff, Gibson founded the new piano duo Hocket and was a featured artist for Piano Spheres, a Los Angeles performing arts organization that presents new music concerts.

She served as assistant director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Composer Fellowship Program and taught at colleges and conservatories in Southern California.

“Sarah was on a brilliant upward trajectory with her writing and career,” said composer Andrew Norman, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist. “She created powerful, personal music. … We have a beautifully crafted and deeply felt body of work that will live on.”