Amy Beth Kirsten
"...one of America's most innovative and visionary composers." BBC Music Magazine March 2019
Amy Beth Kirsten – Composer, Director, Writer, Vocalist
Amy Beth : ARTIST STATEMENT 2020
photo by Gennadi Novash, courtesy of Peak Performances @ Montclair State University, 2017
Recognized by The American Academy of Arts and Letters, the John S. Guggenheim Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation,
Amy Beth Kirsten is celebrated for her theatrical and conceptual approach to composition. Her music fuses voice, instrument, language, and movement into works that blur boundaries between concert, theatre, and ritual.
The 2025–26 concert season includes the completion of Eating the Underworld, a pop-song cycle for Bergamot Quartet and the composer as vocalist; the release of Misfit Toys, a grade 5 work for concert band; and her participation in the 2025 Midwest Clinic in Chicago.
Kirsten’s previous season featured the premiere of Infernal Angel, an opera created with the Curtis Opera Theatre and baritone Ty Boque, inspired by the life of Gilles de Rais and his relationship with Joan of Arc. Earlier evening-length works include Savior (2018), a mystical re-telling of the story of Joan of Arc commissioned for the 20th anniversary of Chicago Symphony’s MusicNOW and named to the Chicago Tribune’s “10 Best Classical Concerts of 2018”; QUIXOTE (2017), a 90-minute theatrical piece created during a residency at Montclair State University; and Colombine’s Paradise Theatre (2014), commissioned and produced by the multi-Grammy-winning eighth blackbird, praised by The Washington Post as a “tour de force” and by The New York Times as “dark, wild, and engrossing.” She made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2014 with strange pilgrims, a multimedia work for chorus, orchestra, and film.
In addition to her musical work, Kirsten is also a writer whose poetry has appeared in several journals. Writing as Aster Isler, she recently completed her debut chapbook, Steady As We Fall – the beginning of a parallel literary journey that threads through her compositional voice. Her poetry can be found in Oberon (2024), Sol Magazine (2010), Avatar Review (2009), and Red Wheelbarrow (2008).
Kirsten is also dedicated to mentoring the next generation of performing and creative artists. At The Juilliard School, she mentors composers and interdisciplinary creators through her composition studio and teaches two courses — Theatre Études and OperaCOMP. At The Curtis Institute of Music, she teaches individual composition lessons. Previous faculty posts include Oberlin College and Conservatory, the Peabody Institute, and Longy School of Music.
She lives in New Haven, Connecticut, with her beloved doodle-hound Roux-ga-Roux and her slow-wandering orange cat, Higgs-B.
BIOGRAPHIES for PRINT or DOWNLOAD
COMMISSIONS
Amy has received commissions from the following ensembles and presenters:
The Curtis Institute (2022), Sandbox Percussion / Koussevitzky Foundation (2022), Icarus Quartet / Chamber Music America (2021), Alarm Will Sound (2018), New Thread Quartet/Chamber Music America (2018), Michael Compitello, solo percussion (2018), Bec Plexus, voice and percussion duo (2018), Donald Berman, piano (2018), Chicago Symphony Orchestra (2017, an evening-length chamber theatre work celebrating 20th anniversary of MusicNOW), Riot Ensemble, U.K. (2017), New World Symphony (2016, a 15-minute chamber theatre work for strings and actors), Peak Performances for HOWL (2015-17), Volti (2015), HOWL (2015), Nadia Spachenko, piano (2015), Jasmine Hogan, harp (2015), Riot Ensemble, U.K. (2014), American Composers Orchestra (2014, for chorus, orchestra, film), Kristin Elgersma, piano (2014), eighth blackbird (2013), Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (2013, libretto by Amy Beth Kirsten / music by Chris Theofanidis), TwoSense/Fromm Foundation (2012), the Calyx Piano Trio/Chamber Music America (2012), Tim Munro, flute (2011), Vicki Ray, piano (2009), Jamestown University Wind Ensemble (2009), Dark in the Song bassoon collective (2010), Lindsay Kesselman, soprano (2012), Robin Kesselman, contrabass (2012), Emerging Voices Project, alto saxophone and soprano (2011), and Missouri Verses and Voices (2010).
Project Funding
These commissions have been funded by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, Arts Council England, the Presser Foundation, Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), the MAP Fund, The National Endowment for the Arts, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University, University of Richmond, the Leonard Bernstein Family, ASCAP Foundation, Chamber Music America, Piano Spheres, California Institute for the Arts, New Music USA Composer Assistance Grant, Elizabeth Liebman, the Walters Art Museum (Baltimore), the State of Connecticut, and YOU via Kickstarter.