Mary Edwards

Mary Edwards (born 1967 in Staten Island, New York) is a composer, lyricist, and sound architect.

Her notable accomplishments in commercial music have been arranging and recording vocals, percussion, and keyboards with her long-time collaborator Robb Scott on his fourth release Afro Odyssey (Sunshine Enterprises/Austria); and liner (sleeve) note writer for U.K. recording artists Swing Out Sister (a musical colleague of the group, she's also been credited as ambient vocalist on their remixes of "Who's Been Sleeping (Parabolica Mix)" and "Alpine Crossing (Gravelax Mix)"). In 2007, she independently released the Bacharach-inspired A Smile in the Mind, a solo album of pop songs that set a nostalgic and filmic mood.

Landscape, space poetics, film, and nostalgia are elements that inform her sound architecture practice. She encourages her audience to appreciate the relationship of music and sound as a means of enhancing their spatial experience.

While earning her Master's degree from Goddard College, her projects included a series of instrumental case studies–composing for buildings–beginning with Marcel Breuer's Stillman House II. Realizing Breuer's intention with the environment was the pivotal moment in the way she thought about composing. Drawing on influences ranging from Bartok to Philip Glass to Zero 7, Mary extended beyond the pop idiom, revealing her proclivity towards music and sound in nature, modern architecture and the 20th-Century compositional aesthetic. She later went on to score "Habitat 67" (written for Moishe Safdie's eponymous Montreal housing complex) and the Buckminster Fuller Biosphere-inspired "One Thousand Whys."

She is a member of The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP); American Composers Forum; and the Architectural League.

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