Composer Connections: Karen Siegel

We’re excited to launch Composer Connections this season, a new series that connects audiences with the composers behind the music we perform. Enjoy intimate conversations with our director and composers near and far to explore their creative inspirations, processes, and lives as composers in the strange new landscape outside the concert hall. This series provides a unique look past the score to connect through our shared language of music—to illuminate the people and stories in between the notes on the page that give the choral music deeper meaning.

We’re delighted to feature the talented artist Karen Siegel in our Composer Connections series. Since the start of the pandemic, Karen has been on the forefront of remote choral singing, not only as a composer, performer, and conductor with the New York City-based ensemble C4: the Choral Composer/Conductor Collective, but providing pedagogical and technical resources for ensembles and directors using teleconferencing as well. We have been thrilled to work with Karen all season-long, performing her Ana El Na last December, and a new consortium composition, Meditation, to premiere this June.

Join us for an intimate conversation with Rebecca and Karen, delving into her compositional inspiration, how remote singing has affected her process as both a composer and performer, and her approach to composing with timely topics of social justice such as immigration, gun violence, climate change, and women’s rights. We’ll also hear from Karen about the inspiration behind Meditation, a new work for remote choir we commissioned with twelve choirs from California to Germany. Meditation—which we’re excited to perform in our upcoming concert Nearness of You: Staying Connected—explores the emotional turmoil of the pandemic through the unpredictable “artistry” of technology, and acts “a balm for singers still physically disconnected from their choirs.” 

Alongside the interview, we’ll also be sharing performances of Karen Siegel’s impactful work to provide a context to her compositional style, celebrate her repertoire and skill to write effectively for both traditional and remote performances.

Watch the broadcast on our Youtube channel and chat with our director live in the comments. This free broadcast will be available to watch on-demand after the premiere, no tickets necessary.

Composer Connections: KAREN SIEGEL

Saturday, May 15 at 6pm

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ABOUT KAREN SIEGEL

Composer Karen Siegel draws on her experience as a vocalist in her creation of innovative choral and vocal works.  Hailed as “complex and wonderful,” (TheatreScene.net) and “colorful and at times groovy” (WQXR.org), her works are frequently performed by the New York City-based ensemble C4: the Choral Composer/Conductor Collective, which she co-founded in 2005. Many of her recent works focus on social or environmental justice themes.

Karen recently presented the choral work “Here I Am,” intended for remote online performance, as a gift to the choral community in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. C4 recently premiered “Here I Am” in the first livestream remote choral concert of the social distancing age, and Karen is providing guidance to other choirs in setting up remote livestream performances.

Her one-act opera, The Hat: Arendt Meets Heidegger, was premiered by Chicago’s Thompson Street Opera Company in 2019. With a libretto by Zsuzsanna Ardó, The Hat imagines the igniting of intellectual and sexual sparks between these historical figures, despite their disparate backgrounds.

Three of Karen’s choral works are available on commercial recordings. “To Be Free” is featured on the Choir of Trinity College, Melbourne’s 2020 album Walking On Waves. “Why Do We Love Our Guns” is featured on Tonality’s 2019 debut album Sing About It, and “Saguaro” is featured on C4’s 2013 album Volume 1: Uncaged.

Karen is the winner of the 2018 Yale Glee Club Emerging Composers Competition, and the Esoterics’ 2014-2015 POLYPHONOS Choral Composition Competition (National Composer category). She is also a winner of the Khorikos ensemble’s 2015 ORTUS competition, first prize winner in the New York Virtuoso Singers 2013 Choral Composition Competition, winner of the 2009 Starer Award for Composition at the City University of New York Graduate Center, a winner of the Manhattan Choral Ensemble’s 2008 Commissioning Competition, and the recipient of awards from Boston Metro Opera and NYU.

Karen’s works are published by See-A-Dot Music Publishing, self-published through Chestnutoak Press, and distributed under the Creative Commons license in the Justice Choir Songbook. Karen received a PhD in composition from the CUNY Graduate Center, where she studied with Tania León; and she holds degrees from Yale (BA in psychology) and NYU Steinhardt (MM in composition), where she studied with Marc-Antonio Consoli. She has been on the faculty at Drew University and the City College of New York. Karen lives in Hoboken, New Jersey with her husband and two sons.

www.karensiegel.com