Kristin Kuster
Composer Kristin Kuster "writes commandingly for the orchestra," and her music "has an invitingly tart edge" (The New York Times). Kuster’s colorfully enthralling compositions take inspiration from architectural space, the weather, and mythology. She has been praised as a "wonderfully gifted composer reaching deep for meaning and expressive breadth."
American Composers Orchestra (ACO) commissioned and premiered Ms. Kuster's "lush and visceral" Myrrha for voices and orchestra in Carnegie Hall in May 2006. Her orchestral work The Narrows won the top prize of ACO's Underwood Emerging Composer Commission--one of the most coveted opportunities in the United States for emerging composers--by being selected from eight finalists in the ACO's 2004 Whitaker New Music Readings. For ACO guest conductor Carl St. Clair, "all of the composers who participated in the readings were extremely gifted, but Kristin's musical voice was absolutely distinguished."
Ms. Kuster was selected for the 2007-08 American Opera Projects' nationally recognized Composers & the Voice Series, in which she has spent a year working with the company's Resident Ensemble Singers and writing for the operatic voice. Last year, the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra (ASO) commissioned Ms. Kuster for the Annapolis Charter 300 Young Composers Competition. In March 2008 the ASO premiered her new work Beneath This Stone, which musically captures the ebb and flow between the permanence and transience of historical renewal. Ms. Kuster was also awarded a 2007 Jerome Foundation Commissioning Program Award through the American Composers Forum for her piece Perpetual Noon, which Boston Symphony flutist Jennifer Nitchman premiered at the National Flute Association Convention in August 2008.
Ms. Kuster has many honors and commissions to her credit. Her music has received support from such organizations as the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Sons of Norway, the Argosy Foundation, the American Composers Forum, the Jack L. Adams Foundation, the American Composers Orchestra, the Composers Conference at Wellesley College, and the Larson Family Foundation. She has received commissions from ensembles such as the Plymouth Symphony Orchestra, the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, the New York Central City Chorus, the PRISM Saxophone Quartet, the Summerfest Chamber Series, 45th Parallel, Vox Early Music Ensemble, conductor John Lynch and the University of Georgia Wind Ensemble, the Heartland Opera Troupe, and a consortium of wind ensembles organized by University of Michigan conductor Michael Haithcock.
Born in 1973, Ms. Kuster grew up in Boulder, Colorado. She earned her doctorate from the University of Michigan, where she studied with William Bolcom, Michael Daugherty, Evan Chambers, and William Albright. In fall 2008, Ms. Kuster joined the University of Michigan School of Music faculty as Assistant Professor of Composition. She divides her time living in both Ann Arbor and New York City with her husband Andrew and son Odin.
Beneath This Stone was commissioned by the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra for the Annapolis Charter 300 Young Composers Competition, with world premiere performances 21-22 March, 2008, under the baton of José-Luis Novo. Before beginning this piece, I visited Annapolis in early July 2007. While I was there, I felt a strong juxtaposition of layers of energy: there seems to be a surface level of the every-day bustle, a middle-ground rooted in the historical buildings that have stood since Annapolis’ beginnings, all of which is connected to the surrounding water with a slow rhythm that has been present even before people settled on the shore. The simultaneous activity and rhythms of the people and the place were very striking to me. The feel of the city seems to convey the past, present, and future at once.
The music of Beneath This Stone captures the ebb and flow between the permanence and transience of historical renewal. The title comes from a plaque on a historical marker in Market Square with the title “History Stone.” The plaque explains that the granite block to which it is attached was the cornerstone of a proposed fountain dedicated on the 200th Anniversary of the Annapolis City Charter in 1908. The small monument moved me because of the contrast between the heaviness of the stone and (in my imagination) the lightness of the fountain which had never been built. That simple contrast of a living history, presented on a marker from a previous celebration of the city’s charter, served as the impetus for Beneath This Stone. Annapolis has many monuments, historical buildings, memories of significant events, and plans that look forward for development in the coming years; and it is my hope that my new piece Beneath This Stone can serve as a living musical monument and tribute to Annapolis’ rich past, present, and future.
Special thanks to José-Luis Novo, R. Lee Streby, and Andrew and Odin Kuster for their artistry and kind support.