Sarah Kirkland Snider
Encyclopedia
Sarah Kirkland Snider is a composer of art songs that straddle the border "between richly orchestrated indie rock and straight chamber music," and a co-director of New Amsterdam Records
.
and her M.M. and Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music
, where she has studied with Martin Bresnick
, Marc-Andre Dalbavie
, Justin Dello Joio, Aaron Jay Kernis
, Ezra Laderman
, David Lang
, and Christopher Rouse
.
Snider's musical compositions 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. Her choice of performance spaces further indicate an indifference to genre, having given performances at venues ranging from New York's most highbrow classical venues including Carnegie Hall
and Merkin Hall to intimate rock venues such as (Le) Poisson Rouge
and The Bell House. Snider has received commissions from artists and ensembles across a wide range of styles, including ACME, Signal, the Eclipse Quartet, Roomful of Teeth, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and a new collaboration with Shara Worden
.
Snider has also demonstrated advocacy for new music, both as a curator of new music festivals such as the Look & Listen Festival, and as a co-director of the independent non-profit label New Amsterdam Records
alongside William Brittelle
and Judd Greenstein
.
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. Since then, the piece has been expanded into an orchestral song cycle released on New Amsterdam Records
in 2010. The album contains vocals by Shara Worden and orchestral accompaniment by Signal, and was the subject of tremendous critical acclaim from both classical and indie-rock publications. The album was listed as Time Out New Yorks No. 1 Classical Album of 2010, NPR'S Top 5 Genre-Defying Albums, WNYC New Sounds' Top 10 Albums of 2010, Huffington Post's Top 10 Alternative-Art Songs of the decade (for "The Lotus Eaters") 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
. Penelope was also included in the CMJ 200, Snider's name was featured on the cover of The Believer
. Like most of Snider's work, it has been praised foremost for its ability to "deftly weave pop... and classical." Some have found "hints of Radiohead
and David Lang
... St. Vincent and Chopin" whereas others have noted "traces of Part
and Sibelius" in her orchestration. The piece has also been called a "hauntingly vivid psychological portrait" that conjures "sensations of abandonment, agitation, grief and reconciliation."
New Amsterdam Records
New Amsterdam Records is a New York City based record label. It was formed in 2008 by Judd Greenstein, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and William Brittelle to promote classically-trained musicians who fall in between traditional genre boundaries. Often abbreviated as NewAm, the organization has been hailed...
.
Life and career
Snider was born and raised in Princeton, New Jersey. She received her B.A. from Wesleyan UniversityWesleyan University
Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...
and her M.M. and Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music
Yale School of Music
The Yale School of Music is one of the twelve professional schools at Yale University and one of the premier music conservatories in the world....
, where she has studied with Martin Bresnick
Martin Bresnick
Martin Bresnick is a composer of contemporary classical music, film scores and experimental music.-Education and early career:Bresnick was born and raised in the Bronx, and is a graduate of New York City's specialized High School of Music and Art. He was educated at the University of Hartford ,...
, Marc-Andre Dalbavie
Marc-André Dalbavie
Marc-André Dalbavie is a French composer. He had his first music lessons at age 6 and later studied at the Conservatoire de Paris. In 1985 he joined the research department of IRCAM where he studied digital synthesis, computer assisted composition and spectral analysis. In the early 1990s he...
, Justin Dello Joio, Aaron Jay Kernis
Aaron Jay Kernis
Aaron Jay Kernis is an American composer and professor at the Yale School of Music.-Biography:Aaron Jay Kernis is Jewish, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and studied at the Manhattan School of Music, the San Francisco Conservatory, and Yale University .,Notable works include the...
, Ezra Laderman
Ezra Laderman
Ezra Laderman is an American composer of classical music.-Biography:His parents, Isidor and Leah, both emigrated to the United States from Poland. Though poor, the family had a piano. Ezra writes, "At four, I was improvising at the piano; at seven, I began to compose music, writing it down...
, David Lang
David Lang
David Lang may refer to:*David Marshall Lang , historian*David Lang , American composer*David Lang , American football running back...
, and Christopher Rouse
Christopher Rouse
Christopher Rouse is an American composer.-Biography:Rouse studied with Richard Hoffmann at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, graduating in 1971, and later completed graduate degrees under Karel Husa at Cornell University in 1977. In between, Rouse studied privately with George Crumb...
.
Snider's musical compositions 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. Her choice of performance spaces further indicate an indifference to genre, having given performances at venues ranging from New York's most highbrow classical venues including Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
and Merkin Hall to intimate rock venues such as (Le) Poisson Rouge
(Le) Poisson Rouge
Poisson Rouge is a music venue and multimedia art cabaret in New York City founded in 2008 by Justin Kantor and David Handler on the former site of The Village Gate. The performance space was designed and engineered by John Storyk/WSDG...
and The Bell House. Snider has received commissions from artists and ensembles across a wide range of styles, including ACME, Signal, the Eclipse Quartet, Roomful of Teeth, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and a new collaboration with Shara Worden
Shara Worden
Shara Worden is the lead singer and songwriter for My Brightest Diamond. She was previously a backup vocalist for Sufjan Stevens and the frontwoman of Awry.-Life:...
.
Snider has also demonstrated advocacy for new music, both as a curator of new music festivals such as the Look & Listen Festival, and as a co-director of the independent non-profit label New Amsterdam Records
New Amsterdam Records
New Amsterdam Records is a New York City based record label. It was formed in 2008 by Judd Greenstein, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and William Brittelle to promote classically-trained musicians who fall in between traditional genre boundaries. Often abbreviated as NewAm, the organization has been hailed...
alongside William Brittelle
William Brittelle
William Brittelle is a composer and multi-instrumentalist devoted to bridging the gap between pop music and New York's downtown classical scene, and a co-director of New Amsterdam Records. He currently lives in Brooklyn.-Biography:...
and Judd Greenstein
Judd Greenstein
Judd Greenstein is an American composer of beat-driven contemporary classical music, and an avid promoter of new music in New York City. He is also a co-director of New Amsterdam Records.-Life and career:Judd Greenstein was born and raised in Manhattan...
.
Penelope
Much of Snider's work between 2007-2011 has revolved around Penelope, a composition based on the faithful wife from Homer's OdysseyOdyssey
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...
with lyrics by playwright Ellen McLaughlin
Ellen McLaughlin
Ellen McLaughlin is an American playwright and actor for stage and film. Her plays include Days and Nights Within, A Narrow Bed, Infinity's House, Iphigenia and Other Daughters, Tongue of a Bird, The Trojan Women, Helen, The Persians and Oedipus.Producers include: Actors' Theater of Louisville,...
. 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. Since then, the piece has been expanded into an orchestral song cycle released on New Amsterdam Records
New Amsterdam Records
New Amsterdam Records is a New York City based record label. It was formed in 2008 by Judd Greenstein, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and William Brittelle to promote classically-trained musicians who fall in between traditional genre boundaries. Often abbreviated as NewAm, the organization has been hailed...
in 2010. The album contains vocals by Shara Worden and orchestral accompaniment by Signal, and was the subject of tremendous critical acclaim from both classical and indie-rock publications. The album was listed as Time Out New Yorks No. 1 Classical Album of 2010, NPR'S Top 5 Genre-Defying Albums, WNYC New Sounds' Top 10 Albums of 2010, Huffington Post's Top 10 Alternative-Art Songs of the decade (for "The Lotus Eaters") 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
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
. Penelope was also included in the CMJ 200, Snider's name was featured on the cover of The Believer
The Believer (magazine)
The Believer is a United States literary magazine that also covers other arts and general culture. Founded and designed in 2003 by the writer and publisher Dave Eggers, it is edited by Vendela Vida, Heidi Julavits and Ed Park...
. Like most of Snider's work, it has been praised foremost for its ability to "deftly weave pop... and classical." Some have found "hints of Radiohead
Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992...
and David Lang
David Lang
David Lang may refer to:*David Marshall Lang , historian*David Lang , American composer*David Lang , American football running back...
... St. Vincent and Chopin" whereas others have noted "traces of Part
Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-made compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also finds its inspiration and influence from...
and Sibelius" in her orchestration. The piece has also been called a "hauntingly vivid psychological portrait" that conjures "sensations of abandonment, agitation, grief and reconciliation."