Kristin Kuster
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Kristin P. Kuster is an American composer of vocal, chamber, and symphonic concert music.
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[edit] Biography
Kristin Kuster (b. 1973) was born Kristin Peterson in Raleigh, North Carolina and grew up in Boulder, Colorado. She received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Michigan, where she studied with William Bolcom, Michael Daugherty, Evan Chambers, and William Albright. Kuster has taught as an Adjunct Lecturer of Composition, Theory, and Performing Arts Technology at the University of Michigan and as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Composition at Denison University, Ohio. She was awarded the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Underwood Emerging Composer Commission from American Composers Orchestra. She currently lives in New York City with her husband Andrew Kuster and son Odin.
[edit] Style
Kuster's compositional style combines prismatic foreground details with intricate attention to rhythmic and harmonic large-scale form. In her music, the surface details provide motivation for and grow into the overall form, imbuing her compositions with an inviting sense of inevitability. Her expressive vocal writing closely follows the declamation and meaning of the words she sets. Her music takes inspiration from architectural space, nature, the weather, and mythology.
[edit] Works
Her compositions for large instrumental ensemble include Myrrha (2006) based on the myth by Ovid and premiered by American Composers Orchestra in Carnegie Hall, Lost Gulch Lookout (2008), Beneath This Stone (2007), Interior (2006), Iron Diamond (2005), The Narrows (2003), and The Wind Will Gather (2002) setting poetry by Manu Samriti Chander.
Among her works for chamber ensemble are Perpetual Noon (2008), Ando: wind beneath rain (2006) and Ando: light against shade (2003) both drawn from the architecture of Tadao Ando, fzg drzl; ptchs fog (2005), Jellyfish (2004), Breath Beneath (2004), and Wright Spaces (2000) inspired by the Usonian Homes of Frank Lloyd Wright.
Her choral and vocal music includes Bleed (2007) based on a letter by Catherine of Siena, Lux fulgebit (2004) and Rorate caeli (2003) both inspired by Gregorian chant, The Leaden Echo (2003), Indoors Again (2001), and Description of Elysium (1998).
