Sarah Kirkland Snider (born 1973)
Sarah Kirkland Snider was born and raised in Princeton, New Jersey. She began studying piano at age 7, cello at age 10, and sang in choruses as a child and teenager. She has a B.A. from Wesleyan University and an M.M. from the Yale School of Music.
Sarah Kirkland Snider has received many commissions in recent years. On June 10 of this year I saw the world premiere of her orchestral work Forward into Light with the New York Philharmonic. Her music is sometimes categorized as impressionist, but in some works (such as her 2010 song cycle Penelope, about the wife of Odysseus) she has drawn on an eclectic mix of genres, including pop and rock:
She is currently working on an opera about the 12th century composer and mystic Hildegard von Bingen.
Much of Sarah Kirkland Snider’s music that is available on YouTube is for orchestra or chamber ensembles, such as this 2011 composition Pale as Centuries for flute, clarinet, electric guitar, piano, and double bass:
This orchestral work Something for the Dark was commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and was inspired by poetry by Detroit artist Philip Levine:
She has also composed for solo piano, such as this work entitled The Currents:
Regarding The Currents, Sarah Kirkland Snider has said that her intent was to write a piece that instead of striving for virtuosity would be “something that challenged the pianist to be at their most expressive, poetic, and lyrical, something that would reward a sharp attention to detail and sensitivity to pacing and narrative.” The title was inspired by a poem by Nathaniel Bellows with the line “But like the hidden current / somewhat undersea / you caused the most upheaval on the other side of me.”