Arlene Sierra | |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Arlene Elizabeth Sierra |
| Born | Miami,Florida, U.S. |
| Origin | New York City,New York, U.S. |
| Genres | |
| Occupation | Composer |
| Instruments | Piano |
| Years active | 1997–present |
| Labels | Bridge Records |
| Website | arlenesierra |
Arlene Sierra is an Americancomposer ofcontemporary classical music, working inLondon, United Kingdom.
Sierra studied atOberlin College Conservatory of Music,Yale University School of Music and theUniversity of Michigan, Ann Arbor, receiving a DMA in 1999; her principal teachers wereMartin Bresnick,Michael Daugherty andJacob Druckman. A composition fellow at the Britten-Pears School (Aldeburgh Festival) in 2000 andTanglewood in 2001, teachers includedLouis Andriessen,Magnus Lindberg, andColin Matthews. She also worked withJudith Weir at theDartington International Summer School in 1999,Paul-Heinz Dittrich in Berlin in 1997-8, andBetsy Jolas at The American Conservatory ofFontainebleau Schools in 1993.[1]
Sierra's music has been commissioned by organizations including theSeattle Symphony,[2]Tanglewood Music Festival,[3] theNew York Philharmonic,[4] theHuddersfield Contemporary Music Festival,[5] the Albany Symphony, theDetroit Symphony, theCheltenham International Festival, theJerome,PRS and Cheswatyr Foundations, and theRalph Vaughan Williams Trust. Performers of her work have includedNew York City Opera VOX, theLondon Sinfonietta,International Contemporary Ensemble, theBoston Symphony, theBBC National Orchestra of Wales, and theTokyo Philharmonic.
In 2001, she was the first woman to win theTakemitsu Prize;[6] in 2007 she received aCharles Ives Fellowship from theAmerican Academy of Arts and Letters[7] with a citation for music, "by turns, urgent, poetic, evocative and witty." In 2011, a debut CD of chamber music was released byBridge Records: Arlene Sierra, Volume 1[8][9] and she was named Composer of the Year by the Classical Recording Foundation.[10] A second CD, Game of Attrition: Arlene Sierra, Vol. 2, was released in 2014 including four orchestral works recorded by theBBC National Orchestra of Wales, Jac Van Steen, conductor.[11] In the same year,Moler, an orchestral work commissioned by theSeattle Symphony, was nominated for aLatin Grammy Award.[12] Sierra's latest release on the Bridge label, Butterflies Remember a Mountain – Arlene Sierra, Vol. 3 (2018) is a chamber disc including performances byNicola Benedetti, Leonard Elschenbroich, the Horszowski Trio, and Quattro Mani.[13] Sierra was Composer-in-Association with theUtah Symphony for the 2020-21 season.[14]
Sierra was a Composition Tutor atCambridge University in 2003-4 before joiningCardiff University School of Music in 2004, where she is Professor of Composition.[15]
Her music is published by Cecilian Music (ASCAP).
Sierra's compositions are rooted in early training in classical piano and inelectronic music at theOberlin Conservatory of Music.[16]
Sierra's earlier works have their origins in military strategy and game theory, with literary sources includingVitruvius andSun Tzu, notably:Ballistae (2000) for large ensemble andSurrounded Ground (2008) for sextet,[17] as well asArt of War (2010), a concerto for piano and orchestra.[18]
Many of Sierra's works are inspired by bird song, insect calls, and sounds and processes from the natural world, includingButterflies Remember a Mountain (2013), a piano trio which was inspired by a peculiar detour in the annual mass migration ofmonarch butterflies. This trio was the starting point forNature Symphony (Sierra) (2017) commissioned by theBBC Philharmonic andBBC Radio 3.[19] Other works that employ natural sounds and processes includeCicada Shell (2006) for ensemble,Birds and Insects, Books 1, 2, and 3 (2007, 2018, 2023) for piano solo,Insects in Amber (2010) for string quartet, andUrban Birds (2014) for three pianos with percussion and electronics.[20]
These two interests – nature and military strategy – are both evident in her 2009 orchestral workGame of Attrition which takes its structure from processes described byCharles Darwin inThe Origin of Species.[21] Larger-scale works along these lines followed, includingNature Symphony (Sierra) and the 2022 workBird Symphony, a commission from theUtah Symphony, which creates a large-scale four-movement structure using transcriptions of bird song.[22]Kiskadee, an orchestral work from 2023 commissioned by theDetroit Symphony, features the calls of two birds that compete for territory in nature, taking this interaction as a source for the structure of the work.[23][24]
Sierra has demonstrated an interest in dramatic and stage works centered on women protagonists, in scenarios ranging fromFaust in the operaFaustine[25] to human trafficking in the collaborative chamber opera Cuatro Corridos.[26] Since 2012, she has been working on a series of original scores to films byMaya Deren for a variety of chamber ensembles, includingMeditation on Violence[27] andRitual in Transfigured Time.[28]
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