Sarah Kirkland Snider

Recently deemed “one of new music’s leading names” (Gramophone), one of the “Top 35 Female Composers in Classical Music” (The Washington Post), and “a rising star on the American compositional scene” (The Wall Street Journal), composer Sarah Kirkland Snider writes music of direct expression and dramatic narrative that has been hailed as “rapturous” (The New York Times), “groundbreaking” (The Boston Globe), and “ravishingly beautiful” (NPR). Featuring an attention to detail that is “as intricate and exquisite as a spider’s web” (BBC Music Magazine), Snider’s music organically synthesizes diverse influences to render a nuanced command of immersive storytelling. In a 2022 profile of her music, Gramophone wrote: “Expressive, evocative, and personal, Sarah Kirkland Snider’s music explores emotional landscapes through vivid, compelling narratives [with] a unique sound world that she has made identifiably her own – familiar, yet at the same time strange and unsettling.” Gothamist NYC writes: “Sarah Kirkland Snider is among the most impressive younger composers in the New York new-music scene. Her music can sound ageless and contemporary at once, with an emotional impact that's direct and immediate."

Snider’s works have been commissioned and/or performed by the New York Philharmonic; Boston Symphony Orchestra; Cleveland Orchestra; National Symphony Orchestra; San Francisco Symphony; Detroit Symphony Orchestra; St. Paul Chamber Orchestra; Philharmonia Orchestra; Britten Sinfonia; Melbourne Symphony Orchestra; National Arts Centre Orchestra; Residentie Orkest; Birmingham Royal Ballet; soprano Renée Fleming and baritone Will Liverman; Deutsche Grammophon for mezzo Emily D’Angelo; percussionist Colin Currie; vocalist Shara Nova; Emerson String Quartet; eighth blackbird; A Far Cry; The Knights; and Roomful of Teeth, among many others. Her music has been heard in concert halls around the world including Carnegie Hall, the Elbphilharmonie, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Sadler’s Wells, the Sydney Opera House, and Wigmore Hall; and programmed at festivals including Aspen, BAM NextWave, Bang On a Can, Big Ears, Cabrillo, Colorado, Cross-linx, Ecstatic, Koorbiënnale, London Handel, Podium, Ravinia, Sundance, and Tanglewood.

Recent major works include Forward Into Light, an orchestral commission for the New York Philharmonic inspired by the American women’s suffrage movement; Drink the Wild Ayre, the final commission by the legendary Emerson String Quartet for their farewell tour; The Blue Hour, a collaborative song cycle for Shara Nova and A Far Cry string orchestra on poetry by Carolyn Forché; and new songs commissioned by Deutsche Grammophon for mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo’s 2022 Juno Award-winning Classical Album of the Year, Enargeia. In 2018, Embrace, her 45’ orchestral ballet with British choreographer George Williamson, commissioned by the Birmingham Royal Ballet, premiered at London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre and was named Best Ballet Premiere of 2018 by Dance Europe. Mass for the Endangered, her 2018 Trinity Wall Street-commissioned 45’ work for SATB choir and ensemble – a celebration of and elegy for the natural world – has since been programmed by dozens of choirs the world over, including Cappella Amsterdam, Cincinnati Vocal Arts Ensemble, Houston Chamber Choir, the Pacific Chorale, Phoenix Chorale, Resonance Ensemble, Schola Cantorum (Norway), the Three Choirs Festival, Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, Vancouver Bach Choir, Verdigris Ensemble, Vlaams Radiokoor, and Voces Solis, among others.