Biographies

[ Sarah Kirkland Snider ]

photo credit: Murat Eyuboglu

Recently deemed “a composer with an enviable knack for crafting moody, strikingly beautiful works” (Time Out New York) and “a potentially significant voice on the American music landscape” (Philadelphia Inquirer), Sarah Kirkland Snider writes music of direct expression and vivid narrative.  Her works, which strive for an indifference to boundaries of style or genre, have been performed internationally by artists and ensembles from around the world including ACME, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Colin Currie, Dinosaur Annex, Hebrides Ensemble, the Knights, Newspeak, Quatuor Bozzini, Signal, and yMusic, in venues ranging from Carnegie Hall, the Aspen Music Festival, Merkin Hall, the Colorado Music Festival, the Bang On a Can Summer Festival, the MATA Festival, the Look & Listen Festival, and the Keys to the Future Contemporary Piano Music Festival to New York multimedia art cabarets such as (le) Poisson Rouge, The Bell House, The Red Bull Theater, and Theater for the New City. Recent commissions have come from the Kaufman Center/Ecstatic Music Festival, the American Composers Forum/Jerome Commissioning Program, the J. Paul Getty Center, Dinosaur Annex, the NOW Ensemble, Newspeak, Third Coast Percussion, and janus, among others.  Sarah has an M.M. and Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music and a B.A. from Wesleyan University.  She is Co-Director, along with William Brittelle and Judd Greenstein, of New Amsterdam Records.

[ Shara Worden ]

photo credit: Murat Eyuboglu

“A creative chameleon with endless wells of technical skill…[with] one of the most astounding voices in all of indie rock” (Pitchfork), Shara Worden is best known as the singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist of My Brightest Diamond, a band that mixes elements of opera, cabaret, chamber music, and rock.  Classically trained as a singer and composer, Shara received a BA in Classical Vocal Performance from the University of North Texas and later continued her opera training privately in New York, where she also studied composition with Padma Newsome and composed music for theater.  Since 2006 My Brightest Diamond has released two studio albums, Bring Me the Workhorse and A Thousand Shark’s Teeth, to wide critical acclaim; in 2006 Shara was nominated Female Artist of the Year in the PLUG Independent Music Awards.  In addition to her work as My Brightest Diamond, Shara has performed and recorded as a guest vocalist with a number of artists across a diverse array of genres including Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Sufjan Stevens, the Decemberists, Bon Iver, the National, and St. Vincent, among others.

[ Signal ]

photo credit: Michael DiDonna

Signal is a large, flexible ensemble dedicated to performing the music of our time with energy, virtuosity, and passion.  Its members include some of most gifted and innovative young musicians working in New York.  Signal performs under the musical direction of Brad Lubman, who founded the group along with cellist and co-artistic director Lauren Radnofsky. Lubman, one of the premier conductors of new music, has worked closely with some of the greatest composers of contemporary concert music – among them Berio, Boulez, Reich, Wuorinen, and Lachenmann – and has appeared with some of the world’s most illustrious orchestras and new music ensembles.  With Signal, described by The New York Times as “one of the most vital groups of its kind,” Lubman has assembled a superb collection of musicians who have worked closely with him during the past decade.  Members of So Percussion, JACK Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and other leading New York ensembles perform regularly with the ensemble.  Signal made its debut in Spring 2008 at the Bang on a Can Marathon in NYC and the Ojai Music Festival in California, earning praise for “deeply committed performances (Musical America) of “gripping vehemence” (LA Times) and has since given sold-out and capacity-crowd performances of Reich, Glass, and Gordon in New York and beyond. The 2009-10 season brings a U.S. tour with iconoclastic German composer Helmut Lachenmann (April) and the U.S. premiere of Harrison Birtwistle’s chamber opera The Corridor (May.) In October 2010, Signal will perform Evan Ziporyn’s music at Zankel Hall as part of Carnegie Hall’s “Making Music” series.  Further events include a pair of Composer Portrait concerts at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre during the 2010-11 season.  Future projects include the premiere recording of Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe’s collaborative multi-media work Shelter, an all-Reich disc for Cantaloupe records (including Daniel Variations and You Are Variations), a five-evening program of works for medium-large ensemble by Reich, and the co-commission and premiere of a new work for Reich’s 75th-birthday year, 2011
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