Recently considered “one of the most gifted and promising modern classical composers of the decade” (Fork), “A potentially important voice in the American musical landscape” (David Patrick Stearns, Philadelphia Investigator), and “an important representative of 21 trends of the century in composition ”(Classic New York Review), composer Sarah Kirkland Snider writes music of direct expression and vivid storytelling that has been hailed as “ecstasy” (The New York Times), “Innovator” (The Boston Globe), and “poignant, deeply personal” (The New Yorker). With an ear for poetics and architecture, Snider’s music draws on a variety of influences to render a nuanced mastery of storytelling immersive. From his cycle of orchestral songs, Penelope, Fork‘s Jayson Greene proclaimed, “Snider’s music lives in… an increasingly populous intergender space that, so far, has produced only a few clear, confident vocals. Snider is perhaps the most sophisticated of all.

Snider’s works were commissioned and performed by the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Kansas City Symphony, and the Saint-Paul chamber orchestra; the Residence Orkest Den Haag, Aarhus Symfoniorkester, Britten Sinfonia, and National Arts Center Orchestra; violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, percussionist Colin Currie, and singer Shara Nova (formerly Worden); eighth blackbird, A cry away, Ensemble signal, The Knights, and yMusic; Full of teeth, Cantus, and Wall Street Trinity Choir; and many more. Conductors who have championed his work include Andreas Delfs, David Danzmayr, André de Ridder, Giancarlo Guerrero, Ryan mcadams, Rossen Milanov, Edwin Outwater, and Leonard Slatkin. His music has been heard in concert halls around the world, including Carnegie Hall, the Elbphilharmonie, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and Wigmore Room; and in festivals like Big ears, BAM Next Wave, Aspen, Ecstatic, Colorado, Cross-linx, Sundance, BAM’s Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, Bang on a summer can, Liquid music, 21C Liederabend, New York Song Festival, Podium (Germany), Oranjewoud (Holland), and Apples & Olives (Switzerland). Penelope, his acclaimed song cycle inspired by The odyssey on text of Ellen mclaughlin, has been played over fifty times in North America and Europe.

About Deborah Johnson

Deborah Johnson, aka CandyStations is an interdisciplinary artist and designer, specializing in scenography and performance visuals. She has worked with artists such as Sufjan Stevens, M83, Sofi Tukker, St. Vincent, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Annie B. Parson, Ray LaMontagne, Bang On A Can and Wilco, with performances at Coachella, Disney Concert Hall, Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Museum of Modern Art, MASS MoCA, Radio City Music Hall, Madison Square Garden, The Fillmore, The Ryman and Wiener Konzerthaus. Johnson has created site-specific performances and installations at SXSW, Sundance, Brooklyn Academy of Music, 92Y Tribeca, MoMA, Chicago’s Millennium Park and the Baltimore Museum of Art, and has completed residencies at MASS MoCA, The Experimental Television Center and The Atlantic Center for the Arts.

Working as CandyStations, Johnson celebrates the collaborative nature of live performance, accessing a diverse network of like-minded manufacturers, lighting designers, artists and programmers to create transcendent and responsive experiences by merging digital and hand-made processes. There is everything from lines of code to piles of charcoal in this studio. Her motto is: “If it works, she uses it, there are no rules.