Sarah Kirkland Snider

Sarah Kirkland Snider is an American composer of critically acclaimed chamber, orchestral, and choral music, as well as art songs that have been said to straddle the border "between richly orchestrated indie rock and straight chamber music."[1] She is also a co-director of New Amsterdam Records and the non-profit presenting organization, New Amsterdam Presents.

Life and career

Snider was born and raised in Princeton, New Jersey. She received her B.A. from Wesleyan University and her M.M. and Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music, where she studied with Martin Bresnick, Aaron Jay Kernis, Ezra Laderman, and David Lang. Other notable teachers include Christopher Rouse and Marc-Andre Dalbavie at the Aspen Music Festival, and Justin Dello Joio.

Snider's musical compositions, particularly her song cycles, frequently borrow from indie-rock and popular musical idioms as well as classical chamber music forms and instrumentation. These stylistic choices have urged critics to label her music as part of the burgeoning indie-classical movement, where she has been called "perhaps the most sophisticated" of voices within this genre.,[1] She has received performances at venues ranging from New York's Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center to rock venues such as (Le) Poisson Rouge and The Bell House and art spaces such as MoMA and Mass MoCA. Snider has received commissions and performances from artists and ensembles including New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony[2] Residentie Orkest Den Haag, American Composers Orchestra, ACME, yMusic, Ensemble Signal, the Knights, NOW Ensemble, Roomful of Teeth, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Shara Nova (My Brightest Diamond), violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, percussionist Colin Currie, and many others. Her works have been featured in festivals such as Aspen, Ecstatic, Colorado, Sundance, BAM’s Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, Bang On a Can Summer, Liquid Music, MATA, Carlsbad, Look & Listen, 21C Liederabend, SONiC, New York Festival of Song, and Apples & Olives.

In 2014 Snider received the prestigious Elaine Lebenbom Award from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Snider has also demonstrated advocacy for new music, both as a co-curator of new music festivals such as the Look & Listen Festival (2001-2007), and, since 2007, as co-artistic director of the independent non-profit label New Amsterdam Records alongside William Brittelle and Judd Greenstein.

Snider's music is published by G. Schirmer.[3]

Penelope

One of Snider's best known works is Penelope, an orchestral song cycle based on the faithful wife from Homer's Odyssey, with lyrics by playwright Ellen McLaughlin. The cycle originated as a music-theater piece commissioned by the J. Paul Getty Center, and served as a contemporary meditation on the notions of memory and identity that are presented in the original poem. The piece was later expanded into an orchestral song cycle and released on New Amsterdam Records in 2010. The album contains vocals by Shara Nova (also known as My Brightest Diamond) and orchestral accompaniment by Ensemble Signal, and was the subject of tremendous critical acclaim from both classical and indie-rock publications. The album was listed as Time Out New York's No. 1 Classical Album of 2010,[4] NPR'S Top 5 Genre-Defying Albums, WNYC New Sounds' Top 10 Albums of 2010,[5] Huffington Post's Top 10 Alternative-Art Songs of the decade (for "The Lotus Eaters")[6] among dozens of other year-end lists. The album also received unusually prestigious indie-rock accolades for a classical album, including an 8.2/10 in Pitchfork.[1] Penelope was also included in the CMJ 200, Snider's name was featured on the cover of The Believer.[7] Like most of Snider's work, it has been praised foremost for its ability to "deftly weave pop... and classical."[8] Some have found "hints of Radiohead and David Lang... St. Vincent and Chopin"[9] whereas others have noted "traces of Pärt and Sibelius"[10] in her orchestration. The piece has also been called a "hauntingly vivid psychological portrait"[1] that conjures "sensations of abandonment, agitation, grief and reconciliation."[11]

List of works

Orchestra
  • Disquiet (2005, rev. 2012)
  • Until I Become Human (2006) for mezzo-soprano, solo viola, and orchestra
  • Hiraeth (2015)
  • Something for the Dark (2015)
  • Blue Hour (2017) for mezzo-soprano and string orchestra
  • Embrace (2018)
  • Forward Into Light (2020)

Chamber Ensemble
  • Just Once (1997) for soprano and piano
  • Mad Song (1998) for tenor and piano
  • The Heart of the Woman (1998) for soprano and piano
  • The Ecotone (1999) for two pianos
  • Ave (2002) for string quartet
  • Stanzas in Meditation (2004) for two sopranos and harp
  • In Two Worlds (2005) for flute, oboe, bass clarinet, French horn, offstage trumpet, trumpet, vibraphone, violin, and cello
  • Thread and Fray (2006) for bass clarinet, viola, and marimba
  • Chrysalis (2006) for soprano and two violas
  • Shiner (2006) for trombone, harp, viola, and marimba
  • Passenger Seat (2006) for high voice (soprano, mezzo, or countertenor) and piano
  • How Graceful Some Things Are, Falling Apart (2006) for mezzo-soprano and piano
  • Daughter of the Waves (2011) for flute, clarinet, French horn, trumpet, electric guitar, violin, viola, and cello
  • Pale as Centuries (2011) for flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, electric guitar, piano, and double bass
  • Taking Turns in My Skin (2011) flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass clarinet, French horn, trumpet, electric guitar, violin, viola, cello, and soprano (optional finger cymbals, guiro, vibraslap)
  • Penelope (2012) for fl/alto fl/picc, cl/bass cl — French horn, tmpt — drums/perc (glock, egg shaker, BD, gro, tri, 2 crot., fing cymb) — e. gtr./acoustic gtr. — mezzo-soprano — violin, viola, cello — laptop
  • You Are Free (2015) for flute, clarinet, marimba, piano, violin, and cello
  • Chrysalis (arr. 2015) for soprano, violin and cello
  • Unremembered (2013, arr. 2016) for chamber orchestra, three voices, and electronics
  • Five Songs from Unremembered (arr. 2017) for oboe, English horns, percussion, acoustic/electric guitar, harp, piano, violin, cello — Wide-Ranged Soprano (E3 to B5) — laptop (electronics)
  • Parallel Play (2019) for flute and piano
  • If you bring forth what is within you: Suite from Blue Hour (2019) for flute, clarinet, bassoon, French horn, piano, two violins, viola, cello, and double bass
  • Penelope (arr. 2019) for mezzo-soprano — one drums/perc (vibr., glock., egg shaker, BD, gro, tri, 2 crot.) — two violins, viola, cello, double bass — laptop

Choir
  • Here (2011) for SSAA chorus
  • Psalm of the Soil (2013) for five tenors, two baritones, and two basses (optional piano accompaniment)
  • Ouroboros (2015) for SSA chorus, string quartet, and two percussion
  • Mass for the Endangered (2018) for SATB chorus, piano, string quintet, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, harp and percussion
  • You Must Feel with Certainty (2018) for SATB chorus and percussion

Solo Instrument
  • Finisterre (1997) for solo piano
  • Only Five (1997) for solo piano
  • Uninvited Reason (1998) for solo piano
  • Prelude (1999) for solo piano
  • A Single Breath (1999) for solo viola
  • Ballade (2001) for solo piano
  • The Reserved, The Reticent (2004) for solo cello

Musical Theater
  • The Burning Out of ’82 (1997) for SATB quartet, piano, and cello
gollark: Yes, but they don't exist yet.
gollark: You're forced to use a "waitgroup" and 198561281682 goroutines.
gollark: Channels are actually quite hard to use nicely, and what is often better is "parallel iterators" or something; but Go *literally will not let you write that* with correct types.
gollark: Go makes it "easy" to be concurrent, except not really because goroutines and everything it has make introducing concurrency bugs really easy.
gollark: Despite Go's ill-deserved reputation for performance.

References
  1. Greene, Jayson (5 January 2011). "Penelope review". Pitchfork. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
  2. "Hiraeth". NC Symphony 2016/17 Raleigh Classical Series. Archived from the original on 16 October 2015. Retrieved 13 Jan 2016.
  3. "News - Sarah Kirkland Snider signs with G. Schirmer, part of the Music Sales Group - Music Sales Classical". Archived from the original on 23 July 2019. Retrieved 7 December 2016.
  4. "The Best and Worst of 2010". Time Our New York. Archived from the original on 24 December 2010. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
  5. Schaeffer, John (8 December 2010). "The 5 Best Genre-Defying Albums of 2010". NPR. Archived from the original on 23 July 2019. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
  6. Kushner, Daniel J. (28 December 2010). "The Top 10 Alternative Art Songs of 2001–2010". Huffington Post. Archived from the original on 23 July 2019. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
  7. "Believer 2011 Music Issue". The Believer. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
  8. Huizenga, Thomas (7 October 2010). "Woman of Constant Sorrow". NPR. Archived from the original on 23 July 2019. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
  9. Eric (28 October 2010). "Penelope: A labor of love". The Indie Handbook. Archived from the original on 23 July 2019. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
  10. Gardner, Alexandra (19 October 2010). "SOUNDS HEARD: SARAH KIRKLAND SNIDER—PENELOPE". New Music Box. Archived from the original on 23 July 2019. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
  11. Smith, Steve (24 May 2009). "Welcome Home, Says a New Mrs. Odysseus". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
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