Sarah Kirkland Snider

Composer Sarah Kirkland Snider writes music of direct expression and vivid narrative that has been hailed as “rapturous” (The New York Times), “haunting” (The Los Angeles Times), and “strikingly beautiful” (Time Out New York). Her works have been commissioned and performed internationally by ACME, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Cantus, Colin Currie, the Hague Philharmonic/Residentie Orkest, Hebrides Ensemble, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, the Knights, Psappha, Roomful of Teeth, Utah Philharmonia, Signal, Shara Worden, yMusic, and many others. Upcoming projects include commissions for the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra, the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, and another orchestra TBA; a work for pierrot ensemble; and a work for the Young People’s Chorus of New York. Her “ravishingly melancholy” (The New York Times) debut album, Penelope (2010), featuring Shara Worden and Signal, was named to dozens of top-ten lists internationally including NPR, Time Out New York (No. 1.), The Huffington Post, eMusic, textura, and WNYC. Her music also appears on the Grammy-award winning eponymous debut album by Roomful of Teeth. Fall 2014 will see the release of Snider’s second album, Unremembered, a 13-song cycle for vocalists Padma Newsome, D.M. Stith, and Shara Worden, and chamber orchestra conducted by Edwin Outwater. A Co-Director of New Amsterdam Records and New Amsterdam Presents, Snider has an M.M. and Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music and a B.A. from Wesleyan University.

Program Note:
Shara Worden and ACO will perform two songs: The Swan and The Witch, excerpted from Snider’s 13-song cycle Unremembered, featuring poetry by New York-based poet Nathaniel Bellows. Snider describes the work as, “A meditation on memory, landscape, innocence, and upheaval.” Unremembered recalls strange and beautiful happenings experienced during a childhood in rural New England — a boy makes a shocking discovery on a riverbank, ghosts appear with messages for the living. Imbued with wonder, pathos, fear, and revelation, Unremembered explores the line between the living and the dead, narrative and silence, and the haunting grandeur of the natural world. Unremembered has been recorded by vocalists Padma Newsome, D.M. Stith, and Shara Worden for release on New Amsterdam Records in July 2015.