[1] She studied voice, piano, and composition at Westminster Choir College from 1943 to 1948, earning her bachelor's and master's degrees in music.

In 1964 her three-act opera-ballet The Selfish Giant won an American Academy of Arts and Letters Prize in music.

She died on April 24, 1979, and is buried in Glendale Cemetery in Akron, Ohio; the birth year on her tombstone, 1927, is incorrect.

She also composed Song of Our Savior for the Hampton Institute Choir, which used Dorian mode and a hummed ostinato with call and response phrases throughout the piece.

These pieces incorporate more modern compositional techniques, such as quartal harmony, which voices chords in fourths rather than thirds and fifths.

Her vocal works include a three-act opera and The Symplegades, which was based on the 17th century Salem witchcraft panic.

The piece itself it somewhat frantic and wild, with the strings and brass sections switching between background and foreground in the composition, and rhythmic fills from the percussion.

Perry uses the title Homunculus as a symbol for the experimental nature of the piece; the name refers to the test tube creature brought to life by Wagner, a character in Goethe's Faust.

[13] The first ever recording of her 1964 Violin Concerto (performed at the Festival by Curtis Stewart and the Experiential Orchestra) was issued to coincide with the event.