Jamie Leigh Sampson is a driven and multi-passionate creator who expresses herself as a composer, entrepreneur, author, bassoonist, and educator. For the past fifteen years she has built a career that serves her musical community through advocacy, research, and publishing practices. She is dedicated to providing opportunity for young musicians and clarifying routes to financial stability in the arts. 

Sampson’s compositions explore a range of genres, emotions, and contemporary topics. She does not shy away from difficult subject matter including gun violence, grief, obsession, and emotional abuse, but also explores beauty, humor, love, and clumsiness. Her work for the Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble was called “transcendentally moving” by the Brooklyn Rail and “impressionistic, enabling the listener to focus on the beauty, timbre, and nuance of the singing.”

She has a long  history of commissions that includes a new orchestra work, Jupiter • Bringing Chaos into Orbit, for the Toledo Symphony Orchestra, Ships’ Passing for wind ensemble commissioned by a consortium led by University of North Texas Wind Orchestra with Dr. Andrew Trachsel, Waving Goodbye for the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, the alphabet: ruin of silence by the Paradise Winds Reed Quintet. She has collaborated with many ensembles over the course of her career, but repeatedly returns to working closely with the Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, the Ritual Action Reed Trio, and the Cleveland Orchestra of Tennessee. She served as composer-in-residence with both the Sotto Voce Vocal Ensemble and Ohio University. 

Jamie has been awarded regional, state, and national grants and awards for her creative work including the Tri-county Arts Council’s Individual Artist Award (2019), New York Foundation for the Arts “Keep New York State Creating” grant (2020), and a New Music USA project grant for her “Women’s Strength in Song.” Through these grants she has been able to complete portions of multiple operas and record a forthcoming album of her works with text written and sung by her closest collaborators Pamela Hart (poet), Amanda DeBoer Bartlett (poet and vocalist), and Mariami Bekauri (vocalist). She earned the 2021 Marion Creativity Award from SUNY Fredonia for her opera In a Flash and in 2022 she was awarded the Alex Shapiro Prize for her first wind ensemble work Ships’ Passing. 

Jamie was born in Syracuse, NY and grew up in the Central New York region. She claims many hometowns and is still adding to the list. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in music composition from SUNY Fredonia and her Master’s degrees in Music Composition and Bassoon Performance from Bowling Green State University.