Acclaim

September 11, 2023

The Boston Globe

"Snider is a contemporary American composer widely performed in the United States and abroad. The title of her quartet is a modified quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson, the quartet’s namesake — “Drink the wild air’s salubrity.” The music nods overtly to nature with its twitters and echoes, though its progress is asymmetrical and often agitated. The Emerson String Quartet gave this new composition an elegant and committed performance."

Jeremy Yudkin
September 5, 2023

NJ Arts

"New works of classical music come and go. But Sarah Kirkland Snider’s “Forward into Light” is here to stay, a timeless and deeply felt anthem inspired by American women suffragists. The Princeton-based composer — who has a unique, personal style — is reshaping the literature of American music with transformative works that seamlessly combine emotionally impactful storytelling with well-knit, contrapuntal textures. “Forward Into Light” opens with three motivic ideas narrated through violins, harp and violas, and builds to a collaborative orchestral voice of melodic, layered textures. The storytelling is vivid, immersive and direct, and arranged through a wide-angled musical lens. Snider’s craftsmanship is developed with stylistic assurance and musical intelligence.”

Courtney Smith
August 9, 2023

Seen and Heard International

"The key was Sarah Kirkland Snider’s 2014 Something for the Dark, a mysterious and moody ten-minute opener that combined some modern, modal minimalism relatable to Adams with cinematic gestures and harmonies that threw back to Sibelius. The piece started with warmth, but there was mystery too. Snider quickly established her long game, harmonically spinning out passages, forcing a sense of longing before any phrase resolves. As the piece went on, it grew darker, the handsome surfaces becoming more crinkled and troubled, building up tension that erupted at its climax in sonorous cracks of timpani and snare drum. True to its harmonic style, it did not so much resolve as dissolve at the end, but the sense of a turning point had been made... Not only was Snider, who was in attendance, received warmly by the audience, she was given a second ovation by the portion of the crowd that spotted her heading back to her seat afterwards, an auspicious welcome to a composer making her Cleveland Orchestra debut."

Mark S. Jordan
August 8, 2023

Cleveland Classical

"The [Cleveland Orchestra] concert began with a captivating performance of Sarah Kirkland Snider’s “Something for the Dark” — which is also something of a concerto for orchestra. Built up from ever-changing layers of color, the piece starts out with bright hues, then becomes somber. Interesting pairings of percussion instruments, especially the coupling of harp and celeste, take on an ethereal sound world that accentuates the colors of the piece. David Robertson and the Orchestra gave the 12-minute work a persuasive reading, and Robertson brought Snider onstage to receive a warm round of applause."

Daniel Hathaway
August 6, 2023

San Francisco Chronicle

"['Forward Into Light' is a] tenderly rapturous tone poem."

Joshua Kosman
August 6, 2023

San Francisco Classical Voice

"Sarah Kirkland Snider’s 'Forward Into Light' (2020)...began with the faintest of flute flurries giving way to lyrical modules making their glittery points in a tonal language. Though this is not a minimalist work, the winds and brass frequently simulate digital delay effects, with notes and phrases echoing away into silence."

Richard S. Ginell
May 9, 2023

The Threepenny Review

“…the Emerson's program was beautifully structured and satisfyingly complete, with Ravel’s lovely quartet to start with, Webern’s Bagatelles as a palate cleanser, Bartok’s No. 2 to end the first act, and a New York premiere [of 'Drink the Wild Ayre'] by Sarah Kirkland Snider just before the performance of Shostakovich’s Twelfth… Snider is a worthy inheritor of the Shostakovich tradition.”

Wendy Lesser
February 15, 2023

Rochester City News

"Composer Sarah Kirkland Snider’s sound world is a hypnotic one, in which lyrical melodies reveal deep, often sad psychological truths."

Daniel J. Kushner
January 19, 2023

Gramophone Magazine

"One of new music's leading names..."

Pwyll Ap Sion
January 7, 2023

New Sounds

"These five gifted composers speak to a circle of stories – shared influences, revelatory experiences- all riffing off of and taking inspiration from one another, as they respond collectively to a flood of memories from a woman traveling the space between life and death as laid out in the poem." — New Sounds Top Ten Albums of 2022

John Schaefer
December 29, 2022

The Nation

"You don’t need to know the madly ambitious conceit of this song cycle to revel in its sheer beauty and poignancy." The Nation Top Ten Albums of 2022

David Hajdu
December 27, 2022

The Boston Globe

"Collectively written works are rarely memorable, but the balance of similarity and otherness among the five composers is so sure as to make “The Blue Hour” seem like the work of a unified compositional voice."--The Boston Globe Top Ten of 2022

David Weininger
December 8, 2022

NPR

"Few multi-composer collaborations are memorable. However, The Blue Hour, an engrossing cycle of songs by Caroline Shaw, Angelica Negrón, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Rachel Grimes and Shara Nova...is unforgettable." NPR Top Ten Albums of 2022

Tom Huizenga
November 17, 2022

Van Magazine

"This architecture lends to The Blue Hour’s compulsive relistenability, new lines emerging as significant with each turn. I want to revisit this album like I revisit certain books every few years or so, using it as a sort of psychological yardstick or Rorschach test to see what stands out. It’s both a means and manifestation of contemplation." -- Van Magazine

Olivia Gioveti
October 14, 2022

The Guardian

"['The Blue Hour' is] a semi-operatic song-cycle written collaboratively by a veritable who’s who of new female composers..."

John Lewis
July 11, 2022

Arts Journal

“Snider’s 'Mass for the Endangered' warrants all of the success that it has had…It’s frankly beautiful. Snider consistently delivers music you want to hear…the music has a keen sense of collage – with thoughtfully chosen musical objects co-existing in the same sound canvass…Particularly magical and virtuosic is the convergence of disparate elements in the Agnus Dei…”

David Patrick Stearns
June 12, 2022

The New York Times

“A gem…With music that was by turns fragile and ferocious — and that also boasted touches of mordant wit — “Light” ably communicated its story about new ideas struggling for space…[conductor Jaap van Zweden] relished hairpin turns during which the music throttled into tutti writing, [managing] Snider’s quick dynamic shifts with a Hollywood sound-mixer’s feel for drama… Sometimes Snider’s Sturm und Drang suggested early feminist boldness, or corresponding public sphere controversy… But even in the densest moments, you could discern Snider’s feel for wry commentary... And so, just as in her ecologically oriented “Mass for the Endangered,” the composer’s intellectual concerns dovetailed smoothly with the lush, inviting score…the audience greeted the new piece with enthusiasm….a reminder enough of Snider’s emergent career.”

Seth Colter Walls
June 12, 2022

Concerto.net

"['Forward Into Light'] possessed a sheer musical attractiveness which, from the start, was entrancing. The motives were rarely played alone. Instead, they rose up out of each other, each ascending theme and each undulating under-theme pressing each other forward, sometimes forming new constructions, but always going back to the original phrases. Not once did Ms. Snider’s music lag or show academic development per se. Rather the instruments goaded each other onward, forward to a series of crescendos into an emotional climax. If pictures were the goal...one might conceive it as waves engendering waves, or creation begetting creations, or even a Darwinesque image of evolution."

Harry Rolnick
June 12, 2022

ClassicalSource.com

"At the start of ['Forward Into Light'], soft rising violin figures and a canon initiated by lower strings combine with the glistening harp, setting the table for development throughout the fourteen-minute piece. Jaap van Zweden ably steered the Philharmonic through fascinating twists and turns, quirky rhythms and dynamic contrasts. The colorful orchestration includes regal touches from the trumpets, a brief but lovely clarinet tune, sonorous cello melodies and a wide range of sounds from percussion. The most unifying element was Nancy Allen’s outstanding playing as her harp returned time after time to lead, connect and punctuate the music. Toward the end, the oboes offer a quote from Dame Ethel Smyth’s March of the Women...[and the] original ideas return, bringing the work full-circle."

David M. Rice
June 4, 2022

Gothamist

"Sarah Kirkland Snider is among the most impressive younger composers in the New York new-music scene. Her music can sound ageless and contemporary at once, with an emotional impact that's direct and immediate."

Steve Smith
March 1, 2022

Gramophone Magazine

“Expressive, evocative, and personal, Sarah Kirkland Snider’s music explores emotional landscapes through vivid, compelling narratives…[her] distinctive blend of classical, rock, ambient, and minimalist elements [is] a unique sound world that she has made identifiably her own – familiar, yet at the same time strange and unsettling.”

Pwyll ap Sion
March 1, 2022

Gramophone Magazine

“One of the most powerful expressions of the indie classical style is Snider’s breakthrough work, 'Penelope'… [It] maintains a high level of emotional and expressive intensity while demonstrating the composer’s innate ability to present powerful and evocative stories through music.”

Pwyll ap Sion
March 1, 2022

Gramophone Magazine

"Snider's gripping settings of Bellows' gothic fables [in 'Unremembered']...capture the sense of awe, wonderment, fear, panic, and loss of innocence as experienced through a child's eyes...[evoking] the Gothic horror of an Edgar Allen Poe story. The music sounds more complex and multilayered than 'Penelope' but is nevertheless full of bold gestures, sharp contrasts and polarized emotions.”

Pwyll ap Sion
January 22, 2022

Van Magazine

"Always a bit otherworldly and ethereal, Snider’s music gives in to each of the four elements, both at different points throughout [Mass for the Endangered]...It creates familiar ground and deep twilight; the ideal vantage point to find a moment of stillness, or perhaps a beginning."

Olivia Giovetti
December 23, 2021

BBC Magazine

'Enargeia,' the debut recording by the young Canadian mezzo Emily D’Angelo, is a mesmerizing and eclectic group of mainly newly composed songs…truly remarkable… on it, I particularly enjoy 'Caritas' by the American composer Sarah Kirkland Snider, which features text based on Hildegard von Bingen's poetry."

Adrianne Pieczonka
December 15, 2021

International Clarinet Association

The third track 'Thread and Fray', a tonal trio for viola, bass clarinet and marimba by Sarah Kirkland Snider, offers a slower pace than the previous works. This piece opens with a unison melody that is then traded, fragmented and passed around the ensemble using a variety of canonical compositional techniques...[showcasing] the strong lyrical and melodic playing styles in the middle-register instruments."

Natalie Szabo
December 2, 2021

NPR Best Songs of 2021

"It's a relatively short and simple song, but "Nausicaa," in this breathtaking rendition, packs an outsized emotional punch. An aqueous synth intro yields to gently undulating strings, unfurling a subtle red carpet walkway onto which the Canadian mezzo-soprano Emily D'Angelo makes her majestic, yet intimate, appearance. And with one long, ravishingly phrased line ("Don't be afraid, stranger"), we fall under the spell of the beauty of the human voice."

Tom Huizenga
November 1, 2021

Opera News

"Sarah Kirkland Snider’s “Psalm of the Soil,” a thoughtful setting of a poem by Nathaniel Bellows, hauntingly depicts a search for home, in a psychological more than a physical sense, with echoing canonic entrances and an effective use of the basses’ lower range."

Joshua Rosenblum
October 29, 2021

Ludwig Van.com

"Every song [on Emily D'Angelo's 'Enargeia'] is an ear-opener…Snider’s 'Dead Friend' will stop you in your tracks for several minutes after it stops playing.”

Norman Lebrecht
October 28, 2021

NPR Best Music of October

"...when you pair a knockout voice, like that of mezzo-soprano Emily D'Angelo, with some ravishingly beautiful music by Sarah Kirkland Snider – one of today's most attentive vocal composers – you have a recipe for sublime listening. Listen to how ["Nausicaa"] unfolds in voluptuous, long lines with incandescent orchestration..."

Tom Huizenga
October 28, 2021

The New York Times

"A brooding album, heavy on drones, mellow chants and sorrowful outpourings, “Enargeia” has its chronological foundation in the solemn music of Hildegard von Bingen, who provides a model for (much) more recent works by Missy Mazzoli, Sarah Kirkland Snider... [including] “The Lotus Eaters,” a lushly wailing song from Snider’s 2009 cycle 'Penelope.'" -- Five Classical Albums to Hear Right Now

Zachary Woolfe
October 13, 2021

Qobuz.com

'Enargeia' is one of those albums that leaves you in silent wonder long after you've finished the last track…we are amazed by [Snider's] arrangements of Bingen's works, which are perfectly integrated into her own compositions.”

Pierre Lamy
October 12, 2021

The Chicago Tribune

"A highlight of the season is Sarah Kirkland Snider's 'Something for the Dark'."

Hannah Edgar
October 8, 2021

Night After Night, On the Record

"I'm especially struck by the way [Emily] D'Angelo handles selections from Snider's devastatingly lovely, emotionally gripping song cycle 'Penelope'...D'Angelo's performance is her own and distinctive, yet it's not a world away from the original; the new performance honors its forebear without slavish mimickry, the sign of a shrewd interpreter and a durable composition."

Steve Smith
October 8, 2021

Presto Music

“Snider’s arrangement of Bingen’s hymn to divine wisdom 'O Virtus Sapientiae,' in which D’Angelo weaves in and out of the glassy, ethereal textures created by the Kuss Quartet, follows on so organically that it’s hard to believe that the music predates the previous track by a thousand years...Three extracts from Snider’s Homer-inspired song-cycle 'Penelope' also impress, particularly the other-worldly beauty of ‘Nausicaa’ (which finds D’Angelo at her most tonally seductive) and the folkish, appropriately hypnotic ‘The Lotus Eaters’ which brings this bold, imaginative debut album to an unsettling but beguiling close.”

Katherine Cooper
October 1, 2021

BBC Music Magazine

"Among many highlights, Sarah Kirkland Snider’s "Psalm of the Soil" explores the idea of home with searing harmonies, delivered here [Cantus's album, 'Manifesto'] with splendid warmth of tone and crisp ensemble."

Kate Wakeling
August 21, 2021

Sequenza 21

"Sarah Kirkland Snider’s luminous 'Psalm of the Soil' connects nature and the divine. The longest setting on the recording [Cantus, Manifesto], it is also the most intricate and interesting formally."

Christian Carey
June 17, 2021

Southbank Centre Blog

"This ravishing album came to my attention during some of the most disconcerting times of lockdown last year. A sumptuous, but gloriously judged new setting of the Mass, [Mass for the Endangered] caresses, haunts, and illuminates the listener with its tender melodies, and a harmonic language that grasps you smoothly yet firmly." -- Six Things I've Heard I Couldn't Live Without

Colin Currie
May 1, 2021

Symposium

Third on the record is the lovely "Thread and Fray:,,,which shows off the individual musical sensibilities of this group. A simple melody snakes along in juxtaposition with an increasingly disjointed and intentionally unstable accompaniment shared across the ensemble, showcasing the stunning control and thoughtful phrasing of each performer.

Andrew Allen
March 3, 2021

YourClassical.org

"Sarah Kirkland Snider's music invokes storytelling in a confident and sophisticated way, creating imagery that you can't help but see when hearing her pieces." -- Ten Contemporary Women Composers You Should Know

Claire Philpott and Brooke Knoll
December 21, 2020

NPR Deceptive Cadence

"Snider must be recognized as one of today's most compelling composers for the human voice." ('Mass for the Endangered', Top Ten Albums of 2020)

Tom Huizenga
December 18, 2020

The Nation

"Snider performed a kind of miracle and created a work that honors the format’s tradition while sounding vitally fresh and evokes the sacred in the service of the secular. [Mass for the Endangered is] a gorgeous, moving piece.” (Top Ten Albums of 2020)

David Hajdu
December 16, 2020

The Arts Fuse

[Mass for the Endangered] proves a striking piece, at once unsettling and beautifully direct…a touching and haunting effort, not to mention a timely one.”

Jonathan Blumhofer
November 26, 2020

BBC Music Magazine

Snider’s lucid score [for ‘Mass for the Endangered’] is at once powerful and delicate…[with] striking harmonies, imaginative use of texture [and] counterpoint that is as intricate and exquisite as a spider’s web. This a luminous and arresting disc that conveys its urgent ecological message with power and beauty.”

Kate Wakeling
November 1, 2020

Opera News

"'Mass for the Endangered’ is musically penetrating and textually provocative…On one level, [it] is a requiem for the natural world…But Snider’s colorful music, while not shying away from the pain of this realization, is, at heart, optimistic, offering a sliver of hope that we may yet save what’s left.” (Critic's Choice)

Joanne Sydney Lessner
October 19, 2020

WQXR

"[Mass for the Endangered's] ethereal choruses and spine-tingling textures, sung brilliantly by the British ensemble Gallicantus, make for challenging but engrossing listening — perfectly fragile music for increasingly fragile circumstances." (Latest/Greatest Releases, October 2020)

Zev Kane
October 16, 2020

The Boston Globe

"American composer Sarah Kirkland Snider adapts the ancient contemplative template of the Catholic Mass to honor and mourn for a burning planet and its wildlife...This premiere recording [of 'Mass for the Endangered] hands the piece to the luminous British choir Gallicantus." ("10 Reasons to Keep Falling for Classical Music")

Zoë Madonna and Jeremy Eichler
October 13, 2020

New York Magazine/Vulture.com

"A contemporary sensibility pierces an antique haze in Sarah Kirkland Snider’s elaboration of the liturgical text, with a libretto by Nathaniel Bellows. There’s a mournful intensity to [Mass for the Endangered], performed by vocal ensemble Gallicantus."

Justin Davidson
September 28, 2020

NPR All Things Considered

"Arresting…shines with multi-layered singing of uncommon beauty…Snider asserts her own musical personality as a composer who knows instinctively how to write for the human voice. Through her smart and resplendent exploration of age-old musical formulas, Snider's eco-inspired 'Mass for the Endangered' is a blast from the past that resonates profoundly in the present.”

Tom Huizenga
September 25, 2020

The New Yorker

"Expressively interpreted by Gallicantus, an English choral ensemble, and captured beautifully in a recording jointly released by New Amsterdam and Nonesuch, ['Mass for the Endangered'] proclaims Snider’s technical command and unerring knack for breathtaking beauty."

Steve Smith
September 25, 2020

The Wall Street Journal

“Sarah Kirkland Snider, a rising star on the American compositional scene … describes ['Mass for the Endangered'] as a prayer for endangered wildlife and their imperiled environments. More plea than polemic, the first recording of this riveting work … [is] elegiac and affecting.”

Barbara Jepson
September 25, 2020

The San Francisco Classical Voice

[In Mass for the Endangered], Snider summons from her forces a lustrous wonder... By turns diaphanous and urgent, exultant and wary, the music both immerses us in this perilous era and stirs us to examine our collective conscience… Snider and Bellows’s collaboration is a meeting of questing, unsettled minds.”

Steven Winn
September 24, 2020

The New York Times

"As with Snider’s past works, the surface details of 'Mass for the Endangered'] can be quickly identified as mellifluous and engaging. But there are additional levels to enjoy...This emphatic articulation of purpose, sung by and for other humans, seems to be reaching beyond environmentalism and toward morality at large."

Seth Colter Walls
September 23, 2020

Limelight

"Snider re-works the mass into a requiem for the environment to spectacular effect...This most accessible and very contemporary work (which just might be the first vegan mass) is deeply grounded in earlier traditions and will be of certain interest to lovers of high-quality choral writing." ('Mass for the Endangered' 4.5 Stars, Editor's Choice)

Lisa MacKinney
August 29, 2020

AnEarful

"[Mass for the Endangered] is so sincere and eloquent in its absorption of the great masses of the past by Bach, Palestrina, etc. - and so sheerly gorgeous - that it is undeniably uplifting...sublime counterpoint and expert architecture."

Jeremy Shatan
May 12, 2020

New York Music Daily

"Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Pale As Centuries is the album’s most striking piece. Its wary guitar theme recedes for Terry Riley-ish upper-register circles, clarinet floating amid piano turbulence and eerie concentric circles just below: it wouldn’t be out of place in the Darcy James Argue catalog."

November 29, 2019

Oregon Arts Watch

"I came away with a newly discovered composer to get all enthusiastic about–Sarah Kirkland Snider, whose 'Scenes from Unremembered'...were the most musically compelling songs of the whole show. Angular melodies, chromatic mediant harmonies, overlapping ascending scales, rich rhythmic density arising from Monkishly interlocking ostinati...A Renaissancey minimalism, and quite honestly some of the coolest stuff I’ve heard in a long time.”

Matthew Neil Andrews
November 25, 2019

ClevelandClassical.com

“...Sarah Kirkland Snider’s colorful 'Something for the Dark' [is] a sort of concerto for orchestra. Each section enjoyed its moment to shine as the piece cycled through a series of themes and rhythmic variations. It begins with an ethereal high note played by a single violin, and expands into a Mahlerian world of sound and textures.”

Colin Roshak
October 14, 2019

NJ.com

"Snider’s nearly 30-minute tone poem 'Hiraeth' was bright and propulsive this night, evoking Twentieth-Century American art music like Samuel Barber and Charles Ives without sounding formal or labored.”

James C. Taylor
September 15, 2019

The New Yorker

"...Sarah Kirkland Snider’s poignant, deeply personal 'Hiraeth,' complemented by a film by Mark DeChiazza, is equally noteworthy..."

Steve Smith
September 8, 2019

Chicago Classical Review

“Nicholas Phan took the stage in the second half of the intermission-less program with a pair of songs by Sarah Kirkland Snider. The tenor captured the room with a haunting a cappella setting of William Blake’s “Mad Song.” Violinist Yuan-Qing Yu and cellist Kenneth Olsen traced gauzy lines around [Nicholas] Phan’s plaintive, austere vocalism in “Chrysalis,” in which the speaker—in a dream—encounters an unwritten poem in the form of a woman. The results were mesmerizing.”

Landon Hegedus
March 14, 2019

The San Diego Story

“For blending four ostensibly mismatched instruments, harp, trombone, viola, and marimba, into a sumptuous quartet filled with luminous clouds of sustained chords and lyrical themes bubbling up to the surface, Sarah Kirkland Snider’s “Shiner” deserves a trophy. Or two."

Ken Herman
December 19, 2018

Seen and Heard International

"With her ability to paint words...in music and convey ideas in sound, Snider creates music ['You Must Feel With Certainty'] that is not only beautiful but intriguing, capturing the spirit of the Swedish mystic [Hilma af Klint] whose paintings could be glimpsed in the adjoining galleries."

Rick Perdian
November 21, 2018

The New York Times

“'Something for the Dark'...approaches sound as a vast, malleable substance. In this sophisticated piece, repetition transforms the emotional charge of musical motifs. A turn of phrase may appear pretty at first, then take on shades of nostalgia before registering as a creepy obsession haunting the ear. Ms. Snider skillfully draws a wide arc, with throbbing brass accents and slashing chords driving up tension. The work ends quietly, as if on a question.”

Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim
July 30, 2018

National Public Radio

"The gorgeous, haunting song cycle ['Penelope'] updates Homer's Odyssey from the perspective of its female characters. Snider has been taken to task for writing music that is too vulnerable and too expressive. In "The Lotus Eaters," she answers her critics powerfully with restless music that overflows from an intoxicating desire to forget." (from "The 200 Greatest Songs By 21st Century Women")

Lara Pelligrinelli
July 15, 2018

Dance Europe

“…as a showcase for [Williamson and Snider’s] emerging talents, 'Embrace' makes an exciting impression…Snider’s score is perfectly suited to Williamson’s theme, rooted in classicism but attuned to the modern ear, with its lushly filmic, melodic quality...I hope she will be commissioned for more dance works henceforth.” (Best Ballet Premieres of 2018)

Amanda Jennings
June 20, 2018

Seeing Dance

“Sarah Kirkland Snider’s new and undoubtedly American score ['Embrace'] with its echoes of Bernstein, Copland, and Barber supports the action well. At a time when it seems de rigueur that new music has to be difficult, Snider manages to be challenging without being hard on the ear.”

David Mead
June 16, 2018

Classical Source

“'Embrace' is a new work by up-and-coming dance-maker, George Williamson, to a tremendous commission from the notable American composer Sarah Kirkland Snider. Snider creates a thrilling sound world, using the many sonorities of a full orchestra and building her music into truly impressive climaxes. It is rich and satisfying, an impressive first dance score from her, making one wish to hear more of her work very soon….superb.”

G. J. Dowler
February 15, 2018

Paste

"[Unremembered is] a masterpiece."

January 9, 2018

New York Classical Review

"…An important representative of 21st century trends in composition…"

George Grella
December 13, 2017

Pitchfork

“The experimental possibilities for holiday tunes are endless…The recursive structure of “Twelve Days of Christmas,” for instance, is a standing invitation to a modern composer’s reappraisal, like a Sarah Kirkland Snider song cycle or a pointillist symphony that echoes the ideas of Steve Reich.”

Grayson Haver Currin
November 12, 2017

The Boston Globe

"The hauntingly beautiful, evening-length song-cycle titled “The Blue Hour” reflects a whole new level of ambition, care, and capacity…[it] is a rare species in contemporary classical music: a successful group composition."

Jeremy Eichler
November 5, 2017

The Washington Post

“Working together, composers Rachel Grimes, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Angélica Negrón, Shara Nova and Caroline Shaw, the Grammy Award-winning singer Luciana Souza and the 18 string players of A Far Cry have come up with a gorgeous and remarkably unified work ['The Blue Hour']."

Joan Reinthaler
August 14, 2017

The Washington Post

"Dense, layered, large-scale works for voice and instruments, probing the past, are a hallmark of this New Jersey-born composer." (from "The Top 35 Female Composers in Classical Music")

Anne Midgette
December 31, 2016

Q2 Music

"In early December, we asked Q2 Music listeners to vote on their favorite new-music of the last 20 years." (Unremembered, Top 50)

August 16, 2016

I Care If You Listen

“['The Currents'] effectively avoids indulging emotion, favoring subtle atmospheric suggestion, true to 19th century impressionism...The piece, however, is not without its surprises... At times tempestuous, at others placid, The Currents is a force of nature—both monsoon and mild breeze.”

Norman Cahn
May 10, 2016

The Boston Musical Intelligencer

"[You Are Free' is] mournful and yearning...darkly ravishing."

Brian Schuth
April 21, 2016

Classical Voice of America

"...[Something for the Dark] represents the best of what a commission can yield. It is an imposing achievement marked by Snider’s unique musical language and decisive artistic vision…The charms of Something for the Dark serve a grand structural purpose. Snider persuasively develops a complex music form...a veritable master class in the craft of contemporary music composition."

Garrett Schumann
April 15, 2016

textura

“In entrancing the listener with the slow dazzle of its intertwining patterns, ['The Currents'] sets the mark high at the outset. There’s a lilting, Debussy-like flow to the material that does, in fact, suggest water movements, especially when the music fluctuates between the rapid motion visible at one stage in a river and the peaceful calm evident elsewhere…"

April 11, 2016

Second Inversion

"[The Currents] carries the same flowing lyricism and sensitivity as Snider’s vocal music—but without any of the words. Mizrahi’s fingers swim gracefully through the ebb and flow of the piece, beautifully capturing the depth and breadth of colors that make the currents come to life.”

Molly Molloy
March 26, 2016

Sequenza 21

"The title track [The Currents]...is a real standout. It adroitly covers a wide swath of both emotional and technical terrain. Thus, it is an ideal solo vehicle..."

Christian B. Carey
February 9, 2016

New York Music Daily

"[In 'Unremembered'] Snider takes a lyric cycle by Nathaniel Bellows, chronicling a literally haunted Massachusetts upbringing, and sets it to a luminous, often otherworldly, brilliantly individualistic score."

Delarue
February 1, 2016

Opera News

“Snider excels at capturing the hazy swirl of memories that can haunt an entire lifetime. Her tonal language is often quite sophisticated and harmonically probing, with impressively layered textures of voices and instruments...otherworldly and ear-catching...Snider clearly has a lot to say that’s worth listening to…” [Unremembered]

Joshua Rosenblum
January 16, 2016

Art and Culture Today

"[Ouroboros, from Epiphany: A Cycle of Life] reflects upon luminosity, music, time, space, life and death, with members of the audience becoming a part of the work and, in the process, connecting with themselves and with the present — the elusive moment of the here and now…Marked by a clear sense of ease and cohesion…energizing yet also soothing and meditative, poetic.

Nélida Nassar
January 4, 2016

Agit Reader

"In a year full of terrific chamber music by up-and-coming composers, 'Unremembered' stands out among its peers. Listeners will still be unpacking its mysteries well into the foreseeable future." (#4, Top Ten Albums of 2015)

Richard Sanford
December 31, 2015

Q2 Music

Q2 Music's 5th annual new-music countdown has returned! We asked listeners, "What do you consider the greatest works of classical music written in the last 20 years?" (Unremembered, Top 50.)

December 24, 2015

The Washington Post

"'Unremembered' [is] an ambitious Gothic song cycle with a wide range of techniques instrumental, vocal and electronic." (Top Five Albums of 2015)

Anne Midgette
December 17, 2015

The Nation

"[Unremembered is] an austere, moving song cycle about strange goings-on in a Dickinsonian landscape." (#4, Top Ten Albums of 2015.)

David Hajdu
November 26, 2015

The Boston Globe

“groundbreaking...one of the most acclaimed song cycles of the last decade…What makes “Penelope” so gently devastating is the way Snider precisely captures the mood of McLaughlin’s text: alternately desolate, agitated, or coldly detached. Musical syntax matters less than the complex web of loss, recrimination, and self-understanding evoked.”

David Weininger
November 16, 2015

The Washington Post

"[Unremembered] is Snider’s own brand of New England gothic that would make Edgar Allan Poe proud...multilayered, often angular, and deftly blends ideas from rock and post-minimalist composers…meticulously orchestrated...painterly, intimate...But it is Snider’s fresh, instinctive way with voices that sets her apart from most of her peers.”

Tom Huizenga
October 5, 2015

Indy Week

“'Unremembered' is all about exploding genres, bringing Van Dyke Parks into conversation with John Adams, My Brightest Diamond into collision with Edgard Varèse, and art song into contact with concept album.”

Dan Ruccia
October 5, 2015

Indy Week

“…[Hiraeth] is quite dark, though never grim. She achieves this effect in ways both obvious and subtle: large swaths of minor-key harmonies; well-placed bursts of dissonance or eerie drones that cut against the cheerier melodies; dense orchestral writing that feels heavy, like the humid summer air of her memories; and the overall architecture, which never quite functions how you expect...Overall, Snider’s command of the orchestra is fantastic...engrossing.”

Dan Ruccia
September 29, 2015

Pitchfork

"…One of the decade’s more gifted, up-and-coming modern classical composers."

Winston Cook-Wilson
September 25, 2015

Classical Voice of North Carolina

“['Hiraeth' is] glorious, even luxuriant, with its rich palette of dark and light hues. One could well be reminded of the wonderful tone poems of Richard Strauss. The honored composer was present, appearing on stage to make her well-deserved bows to the exuberant audience.”

Paul D. Williams
September 23, 2015

Interview Magazine

“[Unremembered is] haunting, orchestral and poetic…cinematic and atmospheric…”

Emily McDermott
September 14, 2015

Second Inversion

“Each song [of 'Unremembered'] is its own vividly colored vignette, a mesmerizing narrative brought to life through Snider’s rich textural and temperamental palette…musically she recalls the strict rules and structures of the classical tradition, but she does so in a way that is blurred, broken, and beautifully contorted.”

Maggie Molloy
September 8, 2015

New York Magazine

“The composer Sarah Kirkland Snider is a refreshingly slow worker: She spent four years weaving the richly textured polychrome tapestry of this [Unremembered] recording. Silver threads of medievalish counterpoint twist together with twinkling electronics, faux folk tunes, vintage pop melodies, and avant-garde choral techniques to create an intricately magical landscape.”

Justin Davidson
September 5, 2015

Thought Catalog

“Together, Snider and Bellows have created one of the most significant and harrowing releases of the year, a ravishing fever dream. Hear it once, and Unremembered is unforgettable.”

Porter Anderson
September 4, 2015

Genre, I'm Only Dancing

“...Music of thoughtful inquiry and humane emotion…a heady blend of thoughtful intricacy with forthright emotional appeal…the setting composed for each [song] is rhythmically and tonally distinct, a sequence of craftily detailed tableaux, rich with surprise and nuance.”

George Wallace
September 1, 2015

textura

"Snider’s lyrical and oft-rapturous music is characterized by immense poise and sophistication…['Unremembered'] reaffirms Snider’s stature as a modern composer of significant note and accomplishment.”