Chris D. Burton is an American composer of concert music. His music draws on his own performance experiences: pulling from piano literature, band, and orchestral repertoire, and blending in stylistic elements of jazz and rock. His work is often characterized by energetic passages full of rhythmic life and emotion. His music “employs the peppiness and darting interjections of Gershwin-era modernism; it’s dense and extraordinarily resourceful.” (NOLA Defender, November 2013)

Burton studied the art of composition under Scott McAllister, Ladislav Kubik, Forrest Pierce, and James Barnes. His String Quartet (2009) was a finalist in the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Competition as well as finalist in the 2012 Red Note Music Festival Composition Competition. Musicians that have performed his music include Craig Hultgren (Cello), the Ohio State University First Year Orchestra, the Baylor University Symphonic Band and Symphony Orchestra, Cultures in Harmony, and Melissa Vaughan (Clarinet).

In New Orleans, Burton co-founded New Fangled Opera in 2012, a company dedicated to the creation and production of new works for opera, and actively performed during 2012 and 2016. Burton’s works are published with Kagarice Brass Editions, Ensemble Publications, Beckenhorst, Hope, and From the Top Music. Burton is a member of ASCAP.