Composer Angela Rice has a long and distinguished career as an artist, patron of the arts and entrepreneur in central Kentucky. She has composed more than 200 works, including the highly acclaimed Easter oratorio “Thy Will Be Done,” performed annually in Lexington. Rice is president of Melodia Music, a publishing and production company specializing in large-scale works for voices and instruments. Rice cofounded, directed and taught at the Ashland School of Music. She served on the Lexington
Philharmonic board as vice president of education. She also was a founding member of The Friends of Music fundraising organization at the University of Kentucky. Rice served as an executive board member for the UK Opera Society and chaired the UK Opera Theatre Workshop. In addition, she established a child development endowment fund through the UK libraries, named in honor of her daughter, Ellen Rice. Since 1991, Rice has been a member and a past president of the UK Libraries National Advisory Board. As an active board member and fundraiser for the Chrysalis House of Lexington, Rice works each year on the organization’s 5K run/walk held at the R.J. Corman Railroad Co. in Nicholasville. A recipient of the 2015 Chrysalis House outstanding volunteer award, Rice created, through LexArts funding, a music education performance program for the children of the Chrysalis House. Rice initiated and hosted the first and second annual Symphony Under the Stars concerts to benefit Winchester’s Stride Program, which provides services for disabled individuals. A graduate of the University of Louisville, Rice studied voice under Professor Emeritus Phyllis Jenness, director of voice at the University of Kentucky, and Sahar Hassan of The New England Conservatory. She studied piano under Robert Harris from the Julliard School. Rice lives with her husband Tom, a radiologist at Baptist Health. They have three children and two grandchildren.
