About
Recently deemed “one of new music’s leading names” (Gramophone), one of the “Top 35 Female Composers in Classical Music” (The Washington Post), and “one of America’s most individual talents” (Musical America), composer Sarah Kirkland Snider writes music of direct expression and vivid narrative. Her work has been hailed as “rapturous” (The New York Times), “groundbreaking” (The Boston Globe), and “ravishingly beautiful” (NPR). Crafting immersive sonic storytelling with an attention to detail “as intricate and exquisite as a spider’s web” (BBC Music Magazine), Snider masterfully synthesizes diverse influences to deliver a uniquely nuanced musical voice. As Textura observed: “Neither imitator nor trend-follower, Snider possesses a singular voice that's intensely personal, yet in being so genuine and authentic, has the capacity to connect broadly.”
The 2025/26 season was a landmark for Snider, highlighted by the award-winning, sold-out rolling world premiere of her first opera, Hildegard, at LA Opera, Prototype Festival (NYC), and the Aspen Music Festival. A work for eight voices and nine instruments, featuring Snider’s own libretto inspired by the writings of St. Hildegard von Bingen, the opera—commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects and the Aspen Music Festival—was awarded 2026 Best New Opera by the Music Critics Association of North America. It also earned a New York Times Critic’s Pick (“gorgeously mesmerizing…a marvel of abundant grace”), the San Francisco Classical Voice Audience Choice Award, and critical acclaim from The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, Classical Voice America, Seen and Heard International, Parterre Box, and many others. That same season saw the world premiere of her orchestral ballet Iris ("a work of expansive lyricism and luminous orchestral weave," –Miami Clasica), commissioned for the New World Symphony and Miami City Ballet, as well as the February 2026 Nonesuch Records and New Amsterdam Records co-release of Forward Into Light, an album of her orchestral works performed by Metropolis Ensemble and conducted by Andrew Cyr. Shortlisted for the 2026 Opus Klassik Award in New Classical, the album earned widespread acclaim from Gramophone, NPR, Musical America, San Francisco Classical Voice, and many others for its colorful orchestration, formal elegance, and "profoundly expressive language" (Radio France, Contemporary Album of the Week.)
Other recent major works include Urge, for baritone and orchestra, commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Aspen Music Festival for Will Liverman on a bespoke text by former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith to celebrate the U.S. 250th anniversary; Forward Into Light, an orchestral commission for the New York Philharmonic inspired by the American women’s suffrage movement; and Drink the Wild Ayre, the final commission by the legendary Emerson String Quartet for their farewell tour. She has also written two recent orchestral ballets: Iris for the New World Symphony and Miami City Ballet, and Embrace for the Birmingham Royal Ballet, which premiered at London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre and was named Best Ballet Premiere by Dance Europe. Her 2018 Trinity Wall Street-commissioned 45-minute choral masterwork, Mass for the Endangered, has been programmed by dozens of prominent choirs worldwide, including Conspirare, Cappella Amsterdam, Vlaams Radiokoor, Phoenix Chorale, Santa Fe Chorale, Houston Chamber Choir, The Three Choirs Festival, The Oregon Bach Festival, Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, Pacific Chorale, Schola Cantorum (Norway), and the Cincinnati Vocal Arts Ensemble.
Snider’s extensive catalog has been commissioned and/or performed by the world's leading orchestras and ensembles, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Residentie Orkest, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, Romanian National Radio Orchestra, Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, and Orchestre National Avignon-Provence. Her concert works and staged productions have been brought to life by LA Opera, the Birmingham Royal Ballet, Miami City Ballet, Emerson String Quartet, eighth blackbird, The Knights, A Far Cry, and Roomful of Teeth, as well as soloists including soprano Renée Fleming, mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo, baritone Will Liverman, pianist Orli Shaham, vocalist Shara Nova, and percussionist Colin Currie. A global presence on the concert stage, her music has been heard in prestigious venues worldwide, including Carnegie Hall, the Elbphilharmonie, the Kennedy Center, Philharmonie de Paris, Lincoln Center, Sadler’s Wells, the Sydney Opera House, the Romanian Athenaeum, and Wigmore Hall. She has been featured at international festivals including Aspen, BAM NextWave, Bang on a Can, Big Ears, Cabrillo, Cross-linx, Enescu, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Koorbiënnale, London Handel, Oranjewoud, Podium Esslingen, Ravinia, Sundance, and Tanglewood.
As a recording artist, Snider has released five critically acclaimed full-length LPs. In addition to her orchestral release Forward Into Light, her albums include the October 2022 Nonesuch/New Amsterdam co-release of The Blue Hour, a collaborative song cycle for Shara Nova and A Far Cry string orchestra, co-written with Rachel Grimes, Angélica Negrón, Shara Nova, and Caroline Shaw on poetry by Carolyn Forché. The album was named to NPR’s Top Ten Albums of 2022 (all genres) and received praise from BBC Music Magazine, The Guardian, and many others. In September 2020, Snider released Mass for the Endangered on Nonesuch/New Amsterdam, performed by the English vocal ensemble Gallicantus. A prayer for the natural world with a libretto by Nathaniel Bellows, it drew high praise from top critics internationally, including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, BBC Music Magazine, and The New Yorker, which noted that “the work proclaims Snider’s technical command and unerring knack for breathtaking beauty,” while NPR declared that “Snider must be recognized as one of today’s most compelling composers for the human voice” (Top Ten Albums of 2020.)
Among Snider’s most celebrated earlier works are two genre-defying orchestral song cycles: Penelope (2010) and Unremembered (2015). Commissioned by the J. Paul Getty Center with lyrics by playwright Ellen McLaughlin, Penelope features vocalist Shara Nova and Ensemble Signal. Named the Top Classical Album of 2010 by Time Out New York and one of NPR’s Top Five Genre-Defying Albums, Pitchfork lauded it, writing: “Snider’s music lives in an increasingly populous inter-genre space that has produced only a few clear, confident voices. Snider is perhaps the most sophisticated of them all.” Penelope has since received over 70 global performances and has been presented as a staged opera by Kansas City Lyric Opera and Magdeburg Opera. Unremembered, a 60-minute song cycle for vocalists Padma Newsome, Shara Nova, and D.M. Stith, chamber orchestra, and electronics, was inspired by poems and illustrations by Nathaniel Bellows. Hailed as “a masterpiece” (Paste) that “attests to Ms. Snider’s thorough command of musical mood setting” (The New York Times), Unremembered was named one of the year's Top Five albums by The Washington Post and The Nation, and one of the “50 Best Classical Works of the Past Twenty Years” by WQXR/NPR radio.
Snider’s music is featured on eighteen other commercial recordings, including soprano Renée Fleming and baritone Will Liverman’s Grammy-nominated Show Me The Way (Cedille Records); mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo’s JUNO-winning Enargeia (Deutsche Grammophon); pianist Adam Tendler’s Grammy-nominated Inheritances (New Amsterdam); pianist Orli Shaham's American Tapestry (Tonsehen); Cantus’s Manifesto (Signum); yMusic’s Beautiful Mechanical; and Roomful of Teeth’s Grammy Award-winning eponymous debut.
The winner of the 2014 Detroit Symphony Orchestra Lebenbom Award, Snider has been Composer-in-Residence at the George Enescu International Music Festival, the Winnipeg New Music Festival, Denmark’s Engelsholm Castle Composition Institute, Soundstreams Canada, and the HighScore Festival in Pavia, Italy, among many others. She has received grants and awards from Opera America, the National Endowment for the Arts, New Music USA, and the Sorel Organization. A sought-after educator, she has held residencies at the University of Michigan, Vanderbilt University, and UC-Boulder, and presented seminars at Yale School of Music, Columbia, Princeton, Duke, NYU, CUNY, Emory, UT-Austin, UCLA, and USC Thornton School of Music, among many others. In Fall 2023, she served as a Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University, co-teaching a course on her operatic work through the Lewis Center for the Arts.
In addition to her compositional career, Snider is a passionate advocate for the new music community. Since 2007, she has served as founding Co-Artistic Director, alongside William Brittelle and Judd Greenstein, of New Amsterdam Records—a Brooklyn-based non-profit The New York Times called “emblematic of an emerging generation” and about which Time Out New York declared, “few organizations have done more to shape 21st-century music in New York City.” From 2001 to 2007, she also co-curated the Look & Listen Festival, a new music series set in modern art galleries in New York City.
Born and raised in Princeton, New Jersey, Snider holds an M.M. and Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music and a B.A. from Wesleyan University. In 2006, she was a Schumann Fellow at the Aspen Music Festival. Her teachers have included Martin Bresnick, Marc-André Dalbavie, Justin Dello Joio, Aaron Jay Kernis, Ezra Laderman, David Lang, and Christopher Rouse. She lives in Princeton with her husband, Steven; son, Jasper; and daughter, Dylan.
Her music is published by G. Schirmer.
(date 9/1/2026)
––––––––––
Composer Sarah Kirkland Snider writes music of direct expression and vivid narrative, hailed as “rapturous” (The New York Times), “groundbreaking” (The Boston Globe), and “ravishingly beautiful” (NPR). Recently named one of the “Top 35 Female Composers in Classical Music” by The Washington Post, Snider’s works have been commissioned and performed by the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Conspirare, Cappella Amsterdam, eighth blackbird, Roomful of Teeth, Renée Fleming, Colin Currie, and Emily D’Angelo, among many others.
Her first opera, Hildegard (for which she wrote the libretto), recently premiered with LA Opera, earning a New York Times Critic’s Pick and the 2026 Best New Opera Award from the Music Critics Association of North America. Winner of the Detroit Symphony Lebenbom Award, her recent works include Forward Into Light for the New York Philharmonic, Drink the Wild Ayre for the Emerson String Quartet, and Mass for the Endangered, programmed by dozens of choirs globally.
Snider’s five full-length LPs—co-released on Nonesuch Records and/or New Amsterdam Records—have earned critical acclaim from The New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, New Yorker, NPR, Pitchfork, Gramophone, The Guardian, and BBC Music Magazine. In 2026, her orchestral album Forward Into Light was shortlisted for the Opus Klassik Award in New Classical. A founding Co-Artistic Director of the non-profit New Amsterdam Records, Snider holds an M.M. and Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music and a B.A. from Wesleyan University, and was a Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University.
(date 9/1/2026)
––––––––––
