Arlene Sierra (born 1970)
Arlene Sierra was born in Miami. She has degrees from Oberlin College-Conservatory (a B.A. in East Asian Studies and a B.Mus in Electronic Music), Yale School of Music, and the University of Michigan. She is currently based in London and teaches composition at Cardiff University School of Music.
In an interview Arlene Sierra has described her compositional language as “Personal, flexible, rhythmic, chromatic, textured, colorful, evolving.” She takes inspiration from evolution and the natural world (as the titles of many of her compositions suggest), but she is also influenced by military strategy and game theory.
This 2013 piano trio is entitled Butterflies Remember a Mountain and the three movements are entitled “Butterflies,” “Remember,” and “A Moutain”:
Another 2013 composition, this one for violin and cello, is called Avian Mirrors: