Kirsten Broberg (born April 16, 1979) is an American composer from

White Bear Lake, Minnesota White Bear Lake is a city in Ramsey County in the state of Minnesota, United States. A small portion of the city also extends into Washington County. The population was 23,769 at the 2010 census. The city is located on White Bear Lake, one o ...

. Her music has been performed by the

Kronos Quartet The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for almost 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classic ...

string quartet, the

Chicago Symphony Orchestra The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) was founded by Theodore Thomas in 1891. The ensemble makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival. The music director is Riccardo Muti, who began his tenure ...

MusicNOW Ensemble, the

Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (SPCO) is a full-time professional chamber orchestra based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. In collaboration with five Artistic Partners, the orchestra's musicians present more than 130 concerts and educational programs ea ...

, The Crossing choral ensemble, the

International Contemporary Ensemble The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a contemporary classical music ensemble, based in New York City and Chicago. ICE performs a diverse and extensive array of chamber, electro-acoustic, improvisatory, and multimedia works. History ...

Ensemble Dal Niente Ensemble Dal Niente is a contemporary classical music ensemble based in Chicago, Illinois, USA that performs acoustic and electroacoustic chamber music. History Ensemble Dal Niente was founded in 2005 by a group of graduate student composers a ...

and the

Jack Quartet The JACK Quartet is an American string quartet dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music. It was founded in 2005 and is based in New York City. The four founding members are violinists Christopher Otto and Ari Streisfeld, viol ...

string quartet. In 2013, she was appointed Assistant Professor at the

University of North Texas The University of North Texas (UNT) is a public research university in Denton, Texas. It was founded as a nonsectarian, coeducational, private teachers college in 1890 and was formally adopted by the state 11 years later."Denton Normal School," ...

Education

Broberg earned a doctorate in music composition in 2009 from

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

in Chicago as a student of

Augusta Read Thomas Augusta Read Thomas (born April 24, 1964) is an American composer and professor. Biography Thomas studied composition with Oliver Knussen at Tanglewood; Jacob Druckman at Yale University; Alan Stout and Bill Karlins at Northwestern University ...

Jay Alan Yim Jay Alan Yim (born April 24, 1958) is an American composer of Chinese descent and recipient of a 1994 Guggenheim Fellowship. Early life and education Yim was born into a Chinese family in St. Louis, Missouri on April 24, 1958. He attended th ...

and

Jason Eckardt Jason Eckardt (born 17 May 1971 in Princeton, New Jersey) is an American composer. He began his musical life playing guitar in heavy metal and jazz bands and abruptly moved to composing after discovering the music of Anton Webern. Compositions ...

. At Northwestern she also worked with

Kaija Saariaho Kaija Anneli Saariaho (; ; born 14 October 1952) is a Finnish composer based in Paris, France. During the course of her career, Saariaho has received commissions from the Lincoln Center for the Kronos Quartet and from IRCAM for the Ensemble Inter ...

Tristan Murail Tristan Murail (born 11 March 1947) is a French composer associated with the "spectral" technique of composition. Among his compositions is the large orchestral work ''Gondwana''. Early life and studies Murail was born in Le Havre, France. His fa ...

Oliver Knussen Stuart Oliver Knussen (12 June 1952 – 8 July 2018) was a British composer and conductor. Early life Oliver Knussen was born in Glasgow, Scotland. His father, Stuart Knussen, was principal double bass of the London Symphony Orchestra, and a ...

and

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Befor ...

. Broberg was the recipient of a Fromm Commissioning Grant from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 2009. Her dissertation ''An Analysis and Contextualization for Resonant Strands, a Cycle of Five Extractable Works for Piano, Bowed Piano and String Quartet'' analyzes ''Resonant Strands'' and provides a historical context for her work by discussing cycles including ''Carceri d'Invenzione'' by

Brian Ferneyhough Brian John Peter Ferneyhough (; born 16 January 1943) is an English composer. Ferneyhough is typically considered the central figure of the New Complexity movement. Ferneyhough has taught composition at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg and ...

, ''Les Espaces Acoustiques'' by

Gérard Grisey Gérard Henri Grisey (; ; 17 June 1946 – 11 November 1998) was a twentieth-century French composer of contemporary classical music. His work is often associated with the Spectralist Movement in music, of which he was a major pioneer. Biograp ...

and ''Opening of the Mouth'' by Richard Barrett.

Style and work

Broberg's music focuses on timbre, and blends

spectral ''Spectral'' is a 2016 3D military science fiction, supernatural horror fantasy and action-adventure thriller war film directed by Nic Mathieu. Written by himself, Ian Fried, and George Nolfi from a story by Fried and Mathieu. The film stars ...

, neoromantic,

minimalist In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

and

complexity Complexity characterises the behaviour of a system or model whose components interaction, interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, leading to nonlinearity, randomness, collective dynamics, hierarchy, and emergence. The term is generall ...

trends. Broberg composes numerous cycles or series of extractable works including ''Resonant Strands'' for piano, bowed piano and string quartet; ''Origins'' for mixed winds and strings and the ''Waters of Time'' for soprano, flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, violin and cello. Broberg is the founder of the contemporary music organization

in Chicago and Ensemble 61 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. While Broberg was the Executive Director of Ensemble Dal Niente the ensemble received a Kranichsteiner Stipendienpreise, during the 45th Summer Course for New Music in Darmstadt, Germany. Her music has been released by Navona Records and

Innova Records Innova Recordings is the independent record label of the non-profit American Composers Forum based in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was founded in 1982 to document the winners of the McKnight Fellowship offered by its parent organization, the Minneso ...

. She was the featured composer for the New Music Box "Spotlight Session" composer for the

American Music Center New Music USA is a new music organization formed by the merging of the American Music Center with Meet The Composer on November 8, 2011. The new organization retains the granting programs of the two former organizations as well as two media program ...

in May 2009. Broberg won the 2016 Composer's Choice Award in

Symphony Number One Symphony Number One (SNO) is a chamber orchestra primarily devoted to new music based in Baltimore, Maryland. SNO performs approximately concerts each year in musical venues in Mount Vernon, Baltimore, at Morgan State University, and across the ...

's third Call for Scores.

References

External links

Official site

newmusicbox

Ensemble 61
{{DEFAULTSORT:Broberg, Kirsten American women composers 21st-century American composers Living people 1979 births 21st-century American women musicians 21st-century women composers Northwestern University alumni