Anna Clyne (born 1980)
Anna Clyne was born in London and began composing at the age of 11. She earned a Bachelor of Music from the University of Edinburgh and an MA in music from the Manhattan School of Music.
Anna Clyne’s music is generally tonal, often quite lyrical, and can be quite rhythmically vigorous. She has composed music for orchestra, choruses, chamber ensembles, and solo instruments, sometimes combined with electronics, and has collaborated with choreographers, visual artists, and filmmakers. She sometimes has the musicians hum, sing, and stomp their feet. In a performance of her Restless Oceans I saw in March, the musicians stand up at the end in joyful defiance and unity.
Within Her Arms is a beautiful 2009 – 2009 composition for string orchestra that Anna Clyne wrote as an elegy to her mother:
Sound and Fury (2019) for chamber orchestra was inspired by Haydn’s Symphony No. 60 and Shakespeare’s Macbeth:
An extended discussion of this work is available on the Boosey & Hawkes website.
This is a recent composition by Anna Clyne called In the Gale for cello and birdsong performed by Yo-Yo Ma accompanied by birds.