Professor Arlene Sierra

U.K.-based American composer Arlene Sierra writes music that takes its impetus from rich sources including military strategy and game theory, Darwinian evolution, and the natural world. The Guardian describes her work as having “its own character, in which historical and contemporary influences are fused into a highly flexible and distinctive style”, while Time Out New York describes it as “spry, savage, sly and seductive.” Performers of her work include the Tokyo Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Utah Symphony, Alabama Symphony, Albany Symphony, New York City Opera VOX, London Sinfonietta, International Contemporary Ensemble, Carducci Quartet, Österreichisches Ensemble für neue Musik, Lontano, Psappha, and the Benedetti-Elschenbroich-Grynyuk Trio at the BBC Proms. Important commissions include Game of Attrition – New York Philharmonic, Art of War – BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Insects in Amber – Cheltenham Music Festival, Neruda Settings – Tanglewood Music Festival, Hand Mit Ringen – Huddersfield Music Festival, Moler – Seattle Symphony, Urban Birds – PRS New Music Biennial, and Nature Symphony – BBC Radio 3 and the BBC Philharmonic

Declared “a name to watch” by BBC Music Magazine, Arlene Sierra gained international recognition when her first orchestral work Aquilowas awarded the Takemitsu Prize at the behest of Oliver Knussen, leading to a series of orchestral performances and commissions by major international ensembles. Further awards have included the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Classical Recording Foundation Composer of the Year, and fellowships including Aspen, Aldeburgh Britten-Pears, Tanglewood, and the MacDowell Colony. She has had the honour of Composer Portrait concerts at the Crush Room, Royal Opera House, London, the Yellow Barn Chamber Music Festival, Vermont, and Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, New York. Sierra’s orchestral showpiece Molerwas nominated for a Latin GRAMMY for Best Contemporary Classical Composition.

Her music is the subject of a series of portrait recordings by the prestigious Bridge Records label. Arlene Sierra, Vol. 1, recorded by the International Contemporary Ensemble, received rave reviews internationally and was featured by NPR Classical, which described its “remarkable brilliance of color,rhythmic dexterity and playfulness.” Game of Attrition: Arlene Sierra, Vol. 2 includes world-premiere recordings of recent orchestral works performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Jac Van Steen, conductor. It has also met with widespread critical acclaim, praised for “vividly scored, colorful works” by the New York Times and described by The Guardian as “remarkably sure-footed... quirky and individual” and “startlingly fresh and assured.” Gramophone Magazine has described Sierra’s latest release Butterflies Remember a Mountain - Arlene Sierra, Vol. 3as “a wonderful chamber music issue that enthrals from first bar to last.” Other labels representing Sierra’s work include NMC and Coviello Classics.

Arlene Sierra’s catalogue ranges from song cycles Streets and Rivers and Neruda Settings to operas Faustine and Cuatro Corridos. Chamber works include the piano albums Birds and Insects, Books 1 and 2, two piano trios Truel and Butterflies Remember a Mountain, string quartet Insects in Amber, ensemble works Ballistae, Cicada Shell and Colmena, and a series of new scores to Maya Deren films from the 1940’s. Urban Birds, for three pianos with percussion and sampled birdsong, was featured by BBC News and toured UK venues including London’s South Bank Centre and the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Butterflies Remember a Mountain has been championed by the Benedetti-Elschenbroich-Grynyuk Trio, with performances at the BBC Proms, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and the Frankfurt Alte Oper.

I am currently working on a series of new chamber scores to Maya Deren’s avant garde films from the 1940’s and 50’s for a planned DVD release with Bridge Records. The series will include scores to the films Meditation on Violence, Ritual in Transfigured Time, A Study in Choreography for Camera, Ensemble for Somnambulists, and At Land.

Many of my works form part of two extant series of thematically-linked pieces for varying instrumentations ranging from solo to orchestra: The first is a Darwinian series exploring aspects of nature including birdsong and insect calls – works include Nature Symphony, Game of Attrition, Insects in Amber, Cricket-Viol, Birds and Insects, Avian Mirrors, and Urban Birds. The second is a series of pieces employing concepts and interactions inspired by game theory and military strategy including works Art of War, Surrounded Ground, Truel, Art of Lightness, and Cicada Shell.