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Hailed by the American Composers Orchestra as having "original, unusual textures" and "very colorful, detailed orchestration," Amy Beth Kirsten's Strange Angel, featured in the 2007 16th Annual Underwood New Music Readings, has earned her attention as a promising young composer. Additionally, the press described her recent San Francisco premier by Volti as "the most singularly original event of the evening" (article). Her distinct and individual style is a synthesis of lyricism and experimentation and often features some element of theatre. Her works have also premiered in Chicago by the New Music Ensemble at Roosevelt University ; in New York at the International Fringe Festival; in Baltimore by the Harbor Opera Company and her Ophelia Forever is scheduled for its San Francisco premier in November of 2008 by San Francisco Cabaret Opera. Most recently Ms. Kirsten has been selected to participate in the Composers Programme in Ottawa, Ontario during which her lightgirl (and the interference of her human shadow) will be premiered in June by members of a dedicated ensemble from l’Orchestre de la francophonie canadienne, led by its Music Director and Conductor Jean Philippe Tremblay.
Ms. Kirsten’s most recent honor includes being named one of two alternates for the 2008-09 Rome Prize in Musical Composition. She also received the 2006 Theodore Presser Award, and the 2006 Randolph S. Rothschild Award for excellence in composition.
Born in East Saint Louis and raised in the Chicago area, Ms. Kirsten received her Bachelor’s Degree in Vocal Jazz Studies from Illinois’ Benedictine University, and her Master’s Degree in Composition from the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. She was a member of the music theory faculty at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University and an adjunct professor of musicianship and music theory at Towson University. A teaching assistantship for the "History of American Popular Music" at Johns Hopkins University led her to develop an Intersession course entitled, "Covered by a Rebel: Women in American popular music and the society that shaped them".
Before coming to Baltimore to attend Peabody, Ms. Kirsten was a regular fixture in the Chicago singer/songwriter scene performing at such venues as Fitzgeralds Nightclub, Quenchers Saloon, The Subterranean, Katerina's, and Uncommon Ground (Click this link to hear live performances from Fitzgerald's Nightclub in Chicago: Circus Machine). She got her start as a singer by studying the great improvisors of jazz. To this day, she uses the skills she developed in her jazz training as a tool in her work as a composer of contemporary concert music. She currently lives and works in New Haven, CT.
