Margaret Collins Stoop taught herself to play the flute at age twelve and at sixteen received a scholarship to the preparatory division of the Mannes College of Music, where she studied flute with Laurel Zucker. In 1989 she graduated from Smith College cum laude with High Honors in Music. While at Smith she studied flute with Patty Shinehouse, composition with Ron Perera and wrote an honors thesis under the guidance of John Sessions entitled “On the Horizontal and Vertical in Selected Works by Schoenberg and Webern.” In 1990 and 1991 she lived in Hong Kong, where she studied Chinese flutes and folk music at the Yuet Wah Music School and western flute privately with Timothy Wilson of the Hong Kong Philharmonic. In 1998 she received her master's degree in music composition from the Aaron Copland School of Music, Queens College (CUNY), studying with Thea Musgrave. As a flutist she has performed as a soloist in many New York City area churches and has been a member of the St. Agnes Cathedral Festival Orchestra in Rockville Centre, NY, and the St. Joseph’s Chamber Orchestra in Astoria, Queens. Her compositions for flute solo and chamber works have been performed throughout the United States, and she has performed her own works numerous times with Weston Music Center faculty member Allen Brings. An award winning composer, she has received many awards for her compositions including the American Romanian Team for the Arts Finalist and First Prize in the Berkshire County Children’s Chorus Composition Competition. A lifelong chorister, she is the founding director of the Adesso Choral Society and is a member of the Fairfield County Chorale. She has served on the Ridgefield Arts Council and is president of Connecticut Composers, Inc.