Born in Washington, D.C., Elizabeth Vercoe grew up in a musical family and studied the classical piano and the violin while attending the National Cathedral School.
From 1958 to 1962, she studied music theory at Wellesley College where she was awarded the Hubert Weldon Lamb Prize in Composition.
Following college, Vercoe began graduate school at the University of Michigan where she pursued a Masters of Music degree in composition, studying under George Wilson, Ross Lee Finney and Leslie Bassett.
In 2003 Elizabeth Vercoe was awarded the Acuff Chair of Excellence at Austin Peay State University for a semester residency in which she gave public lectures, coached performances of her music, and was commissioned to write new work.
[2] Notable performances include those by the Memphis Chamber Orchestra, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, the Berkshire Symphony Orchestra, the Women's Philharmonic, the Aeolian Chamber Players, the New York Virtuoso Singers, Alea III, and the Great Noise Ensemble, and at such venues as the Amalfi Coast Festival, the Goethe Institute in Bangkok, the Marblehead Festival, the Svenska Mandolinfestivalen, Carnegie Recital Hall, the Salle Cortot, IRCAM, the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, Abraham Goodman House and Merkin Hall.