Biography
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Born In
Princeton, Mercer County, New Jersey, United States
Recently deemed 'a composer with an enviable knack for crafting moody, strikingly beautiful works' (TimeOut, New York), Sarah Kirkland Snider is a New York-based composer whose music defies easy categorization, drawing on elements of modern classical composition, indie rock, classical cabaret & folk music. Her first album, Penelope, features Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond) & the chamber orchestra Signal and has been critically acclaimed by NPR, The Los Angeles Times, New York Magazine, Time Out New York, Filter, The Utne Reader, Textura, Death and Taxes, Popshifter, The Indie Handbook, and many others.
Her works have been performed by artists and ensembles from around the world including Shara Worden, Signal, Colin Currie, the Knights, Hebrides Ensemble, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Psappha, Dinosaur Annex, Newspeak, Quatuor Bozzini, and many others, in venues ranging from Carnegie Hall, the Aspen Music Festival, Merkin Hall, the Colorado Music Festival, the Bang On a Can Summer Festival, the MATA Festival, the Look & Listen Festival, and the Keys to the Future Contemporary Piano Music Festival to New York multimedia art cabarets such as (le) Poisson Rouge, the Bell House, The Red Bull Theater, and Theater for the New City.
Her most recent music explores her love of songwriting. These works include Penelope (2009), a 60-minute song cycle with lyrics by playwright Ellen McLaughlin, written for vocalist Shara Worden (of My Brightest Diamond) and the chamber orchestra Signal; Penelope (2008), a music-theater monodrama for Ellen McLaughlin and the Eclipse Quartet commissioned by the J. Paul Getty Center; and Until I Became Human (2007), a set of songs for mezzo, viola, and orchestra commissioned by Dinosaur Annex and the Community Music Center of Boston, set to the poetry of Ivanna Yi. Like Penelope (2009), which is scored for string orchestra, harp, percussion, electric guitar, electric bass, drums, and electronics, much of her music features untraditional instrumentation; these works include Shiner (trombone, harp, viola, marimba), Stanzas in Meditation (two sopranos and harp), and In Two Worlds (mixed chamber ensemble including two trumpets, one offstage.) Upcoming projects include a Merkin Hall commission for Shara Worden and yMusic, as well as works for NOW Ensemble, Third Coast Percussion, janus, and violist Nadia Sirota.
Sarah is also active as a promoter of new music in New York and beyond. From 2001-2007 she co-curated the Look & Listen Festival, a new music series set in modern art galleries. Since 2007 she has served as Co-Director, along with William Brittelle and Judd Greenstein, of New Amsterdam Records, an independent record label recently called “the focal point of the post-classical scene,” (Time Out New York) and “emblematic of an emerging generation” (The New York Times), and praised for “releasing one quality disc after another” (Newsweek).
Sarah has an M.M. and Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music and a B.A. from Wesleyan University, and in 2006 was a Schumann Fellow at the Aspen Music Festival. The recipient of numerous honors and distinctions for her music, she has studied with Martin Bresnick, Marc-Andre Dalbavie, Justin Dello Joio, Aaron Jay Kernis, Ezra Laderman, David Lang, and Christopher Rouse. She lives in Brooklyn, NY and Princeton, NJ, with her husband, Steven, and their son, Jasper. Her music is published by Good Child Music Publishing.
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