Marilyn Shrude

Marilyn Shrude is a composer, pianist, and contemporary music advocate whose work is known for its warmth, rich timbre, and blend of tonality and atonality, shaped in part by her background in Pre-Vatican II liturgical music. She has served on the Bowling Green State University faculty since 1977, with honors including awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the National Endowment for the Arts, plus distinction as the first woman to receive the Kennedy Center Friedheim Award for Orchestral Music. As founder of the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music and longtime chair of BGSU's composition department, she has championed American music worldwide, premiering and performing hundreds of works alongside saxophonist John Sampen. Most recently, she received an Honorary Doctorate from the West University of Timisoara, Romania, in 2024.