Composer Sarah Kirkland Snider's Season Highlights - World Premiere of HILDEGARD with LA Opera & PROTOTYPE; New Orchestral Album; New Dance Work for Miami City Ballet; and more
Photo by Anja Schutz available in high resolution here.
Composer Sarah Kirkland Snider’s 2025-2026 Season Highlights
Rolling World Premiere Performances of First Opera HILDEGARD
Los Angeles Opera November 5-9, 2025 & PROTOTYPE in NYC January 9-17, 2026
Plus Aspen Music Festival Summer 2026
Co-commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects & the Aspen Music Festival and School
Release of New Orchestral Album
Forward Into Light with Andrew Cyr & Metropolis Ensemble in January 2026
World Premiere of a New Work for the
New World Symphony and Miami City Ballet
April 17-19, 2026
Professional World Premiere of Marmoris by the Monterey Symphony
May 16-17, 2026
Continued Performances of Major Works The Blue Hour, Penelope, Mass for the Endangered, Something for the Dark, Marmoris, Scenes from Unremembered
“Expressive, evocative, and personal, Sarah Kirkland Snider’s music explores emotional landscapes through vivid, compelling narratives in a unique sound world that she has made identifiably her own – familiar, yet at the same time strange and unsettling.” – Gramophone
“Her music can sound ageless and contemporary at once, with an emotional impact that's direct and immediate.” – Gothamist
Schedule: www.sarahkirklandsnider.com/events
Composer Sarah Kirkland Snider, deemed “one of new music’s leading names” (Gramophone), writes music of direct expression and dramatic narrative that has been hailed as “rapturous” (The New York Times), “groundbreaking” (The Boston Globe), and “ravishingly beautiful” (NPR). With an attention to detail that is “as intricate and exquisite as a spider’s web” (BBC Music Magazine), Snider’s music synthesizes diverse influences to render a nuanced command of immersive storytelling. Snider’s music will be performed around the world this season in cities including Paris, France; Offenbach, Germany; Toronto and Kitchener, Ontario, Canada; Abbotsford, Victoria, Australia; and Antwerp, Belgium; as well as across the United States from Brooklyn, New York and Baltimore, Maryland to Wheeling, West Virginia; Ann Arbor, Michigan; and Berkeley, California.
Highlights of Sarah Kirkland Snider’s 2025-2026 concert season include the milestone premieres of three major new works – her first opera, HILDEGARD, for which she also wrote the libretto, co-commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects and the Aspen Music Festival and School and presented in rolling world premieres by Los Angeles Opera (November 5-9, 2025) and PROTOTYPE Festival in New York (January 9-17, 2026), with subsequent performances at the Aspen Music Festival and School (Summer 2026); a new work for dance for the New World Symphony and Miami City Ballet (April 17-19, 2026); and the professional world premiere performances of Snider’s latest orchestral work Marmoris by the Monterey Symphony (May 16-17, 2026).
In addition, in January 2026 Sarah Kirkland Snider will release her fifth full-length LP, a new, all-orchestral album titled Forward Into Light produced by multi-Grammy-winning producer Silas Brown and recorded by Andrew Cyr and the Metropolis Ensemble, which features her work Forward Into Light, an orchestral commission for the New York Philharmonic inspired by the American women’s suffrage movement; the string orchestra version of Drink the Wild Ayre, a reimagining of the string quartet Snider was commissioned to write for the Emerson String Quartet for the ensemble’s farewell tour; Eye of Mnemosyne, commissioned by the Rochester Philharmonic; and Something for the Dark, commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. The album will be released by the label that Snider co-founded, New Amsterdam Records.
Co-commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects and the Aspen Music Festival and School, Sarah Kirkland Snider’s opera HILDEGARD (2025) is about twelfth-century German Benedictine abbess/polymath/composer St. Hildegard von Bingen. HILDEGARD will have its rolling world premiere at Los Angeles Opera (November 5-9, 2025) and New York’s PROTOTYPE Festival (January 9-17, 2026), followed by performances by the Aspen Music Festival and School in summer 2026. Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum will present a discussion on the creation of HILDEGARD, along with performances of excerpts from the new work, on September 15, 2025, at the Guggenheim Museum.
Set in 1147, the opera follows Hildegard as she begins transcribing her visions of God to obtain Papal approval, at grave risk of excommunication. She enlists a young convalescent, Richardis von Stade, to help illustrate her visions, and the two women quickly develop a transformative partnership that awakens them creatively, spiritually, and – much to the internal conflict of both women – romantically. Immersive and intimate, HILDEGARD is a tale of two gifted women struggling to find their voices in a time and place where female voices were not meant to be heard. More broadly, the opera is about the desire for connection – to divinity, humanity, and our deepest sense of self – and the conflicts that compete therein.
Snider has both composed the opera and written the libretto. Beth Morrison is the creative producer. HILDEGARD is directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer with music director Gabriel Crouch, and stars Nola Richardson (Hildegard von Bingen), Mikaela Bennett (Richards von Stade), Raha Mirzadegan (Angel), Blythe Gaissert (Margravine von Stade), Roy Hage (Volmar), Patrick Bessenbacher (Mechthild), David Adam Moore (Abbot Cuno), and Paul Chwe MinChul An (Otto). With two grants from Opera America, Hildegard has been workshopped at Princeton University Lewis Center for the Arts Atelier program (2023), Opera Fusion: New Works at Cincinnati Opera (2024), and Mannes College of Music (2025).
Snider's new work for dance will premiere April 17-19, 2026 presented by two of Miami's cornerstone cultural institutions, New World Symphony and Miami City Ballet. The new work is a choreographic concerto, bringing together music by Snider and four other leading musical voices – Michael Abels, Jennifer Higdon, Kevin Puts, and Carlos Simon – paired with new work by visionary choreographers.
Snider’s newest orchestral work, Marmoris (2025), will receive its professional premiere by the Monterey Symphony under conductor Jayce Ogren at the Sunset Center in Carmel, CA (May 16-17, 2026), following performances at the University of Michigan in March 2025 and January 2026. Snider composed Marmoris in the months prior to the 2024 U.S. election, and the title is an ancient Latin word that means “the shimmering surface of the sea.” Snider writes, “Orchestras bring together musicians from all different backgrounds and perspectives to listen to each other, empathize, and cooperate in the creation of a shared human experience that transcends cultural and ideological differences. The orchestra has often reminded me of an ocean in this way – a seemingly living, breathing thing consisting of myriad unique lifeforms churning in concert. This piece reflects upon the forces in life that hold and enclose us, those vast similitudes that remind us we are a part of something much larger than our daily human struggles might allow us to perceive.”
Sarah Kirkland Snider’s existing works for orchestra will also be performed widely this season:
The Blue Hour (2017), an ambitious 70-minute song cycle for mezzo-soprano and string orchestra composed by Rachel Grimes, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Angélica Negrón, Shara Nova, and Caroline Shaw, will be performed this season by Orchestra National Avignon with Shara Nova at the Philharmonie de Paris (October 17, 2025), by the Wheeling Symphony and Shara Nova in Wheeling, WV (March 20, 2026), the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra and Bella Adamova at Queen Elizabeth Hall (March 28, 2026), and The National Philharmonic and Shara Nova at the Music Centre at Strathmore (May 9, 2026). The Blue Hour uses as its text Carolyn Forché’s poem, “On Earth,” which catalogs the scattered thoughts, visions, and imagery of a life passing ever closer to death, organized through the objective but arbitrary tool of alphabetization. The recording by Shara Nova and A Far Cry was co-released in 2022 by Nonesuch Records and New Amsterdam Records and was nominated for a 2023 GRAMMY Award.
Snider’s work Penelope (2007/2009), a meditation on memory, identity, and what it means to come home inspired by Homer’s epic poem the Odyssey with lyrics by playwright Ellen McLaughlin, will be performed this season by the Alta Collective at Abbotsford Convent in Victoria, Australia (October 25-26, 2025); the Metropolis Ensemble presented by Emerald City Music in Seattle, WA (February 6, 2026) and Olympia, WA (February 7, 2026); and the Wheeling Symphony in Wheeling, WV (March 17, 2026). Penelope was released on New Amsterdam Records in 2010, recorded by Shara Nova and Signal.
Also this season, Snider’s Something for the Dark (2015) will be performed by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Robertson (March 6-7, 2026). Snider writes of the genesis of the piece, “Something for the Dark was commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as a result of my receiving the DSO Elaine Lebenbom Award for Female Composers in 2014. Thinking about Detroit led me to think about resilience, and what it means to endure. . . The title of the piece comes from ‘For Fran,’ a poem by Philip Levine, the Detroit-born-and-raised, former U.S. Poet Laureate who was best known for his poems about Detroit’s working class.”
Also this season, Sarah Kirkland Snider’s monumental choral work Mass for the Endangered (2018) will continue to be performed throughout North America, including by The Emmanuel Choir in Baltimore (November 2, 2025), Soundstreams Choir in Toronto, ON (November 22, 2025), Park Slope Singers in Brooklyn, NY (January 31-February 1, 2026), Elora Singers at St. Matthew’s Centre in Kitchener, ON (March 29, 2026), and Borealis Chamber Artists in Duluth, MN (May 23, 2026). Commissioned by Trinity Wall Street in 2018, Mass for the Endangered is a hymn for the voiceless and discounted. Snider writes that the piece, “appeals for parity, compassion, and protection, from a mindset – a malignance or apathy – that threatens to destroy the planet we all are meant to share.” David Patrick Stearns reports in Arts Journal, “Snider’s Mass for the Endangered warrants all of the success that it has had…It’s frankly beautiful. Snider consistently delivers music you want to hear…the music has a keen sense of collage – with thoughtfully chosen musical objects co-existing in the same sound canvas…” Mass for the Endangered was released on Nonesuch/New Amsterdam Records in 2020.
In addition, Scenes from Unremembered (2011), Snider’s five-song version for choir and piano of her larger song cycle Unremembered, will be performed by Volti in Berkeley, CA (Spring 2026). Unremembered is inspired by the poems and illustrations of writer and artist Nathaniel Bellows. The complete song cycle was released on New Amsterdam Records in 2015, and named to dozens of best-of lists that year.
Snider’s chamber music and solo works will also be featured in several performances throughout the season including by pianist Adam Tendler in the plum tree I planted still there (2022) as part of his Inheritances project at Barre Opera House in Barre, VT (November 16, 2025); O Sweet and Beloved Mother (2023), a study for Snider’s opera HILDEGARD, by the Capitol Symphony Orchestra in Offenbach, Germany (March 15, 2026); Shiner (2006) for trombone, harp, viola, and marimba by Art of Elan at ICA in San Diego, CA (April 12, 2026); and You Are Free (2015), inspired by a field recording of Arvo Pärt’s interview with Björk from the 1990s, by Third Angle at Miller Hall World Forestry Center in Portland, OR (May 15, 2026).
Sarah Kirkland Snider’s music has been commissioned and/or performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra; Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Cleveland Orchestra; Detroit Symphony Orchestra; National Symphony Orchestra; New York Philharmonic; San Francisco Symphony; Philharmonia Orchestra; Melbourne Symphony Orchestra; Toronto Symphony Orchestra; Residentie Orkest; Birmingham Royal Ballet; Emerson String Quartet; Renée Fleming and Will Liverman; Deutsche Grammophon for mezzo Emily D’Angelo; percussionist Colin Currie; eighth blackbird; A Far Cry; and Roomful of Teeth, among many others. The winner of the 2014 Detroit Symphony Orchestra Lebenbom Competition, Snider’s recent works include Forward Into Light, an orchestral commission for the New York Philharmonic inspired by American women suffragists; Drink the Wild Ayre, the final commission by the legendary Emerson String Quartet; Mass for the Endangered, a Trinity Wall Street-commissioned prayer for the environment for choir and ensemble, programmed by dozens of choirs the world over; and Embrace, an orchestral ballet for the Birmingham Royal Ballet.
Her four full-length LPs – The Blue Hour (Nonesuch/NewAmsterdam, 2022), Mass for the Endangered (Nonesuch/NewAmsterdam, 2020), Unremembered (New Amsterdam, 2015), and Penelope (New Amsterdam, 2010) – have garnered year-end nods and critical acclaim from The New York Times, NPR, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Gramophone Magazine, Pitchfork, BBC Music Magazine, The Nation, and many others. A founding Co-Artistic Director of Brooklyn-based non-profit New Amsterdam Records, Snider has an M.M.and Artist’s Diploma from the Yale School of Music, and a B.A. from Wesleyan University. She was a Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University in fall 2023. Her music is published by G. Schirmer.
For more information about Sarah Kirkland Snider: www.sarahkirklandsnider.com/bio