Our founder
Dawn Culbertson 1951–2004
Composer, lutenist, recorder player, singer, journalist and bass player in an avant-garde big band. In 1992 she founded the Baltimore Composers' Forum so the people writing music in her city would get to hear it played there.
A Baltimore musician
A Baltimore native, Dawn earned a bachelor's degree in music composition from Towson State University and a master's in composition from the Peabody Conservatory. She studied lute with Roger Harmon at Peabody and with Paul O'Dette, Cathy Liddell, Karen Neyers and Pat O'Brien at Lute Society of America seminars and master classes.
As a lutenist she was drawn to the repertoire most players skipped, especially early Renaissance music written before 1550 in Germany, France and Italy. Being a composer, she played contemporary lute music too, and wrote pieces for solo lute and for lute with voice.
On stage
She gave recitals on the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions Midday Concert Series, at Old Otterbein and Old St. Paul's in Baltimore, St. Augustine's and the Church of the Epiphany in Washington, and Harmony Hall in Prince George's County. In 1999 she gave a concert of sacred music with countertenor Richard McCready at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen that included world premieres by both of them. She presented her own music at Philadelphia's Fringe Festival and at Baltimore's 14 Karat Cabaret, and in 2000 was placed on the Kennedy Center's Approved Artists Roster.
She also played recorder with the baroque groups Squire Western's Fancy and Musica Antiqua, sang with the Municipal Opera of Baltimore, played electric bass in the PDTTBA Big Band, called English country dances, and wrote prize-winning journalism for local and national publications.
Her Forum
The Forum Dawn started in 1992 has since presented more than 300 original works by Baltimore-area composers. After her death in 2004 she was remembered by Maryland Public Television, The Baltimore Sun, the Baltimore City Paper, the Lute Society of America and many others, and a Dawn Culbertson Memorial CD was released.
Every BCF concert still does what she set out to do.