About Me
Arlene Sierra was born in Miami and raised in an artistic New York family. She began piano studies at the age of five and took her first composition class at Oberlin College-Conservatory with Michael Daugherty while earning dual B.Mus. and B.A. degrees in Electronic Music and East Asian Studies. Full time composition studies began at the Yale School of Music with Jacob Druckman and Martin Bresnick, where she received an M. Mus. in Composition, and continued at the University of Michigan, where she was a Merit Fellow and received a Doctorate in Composition. As a student she won fellowships to international music festivals including Aspen, June In Buffalo, Bowdoin and the American Conservatory of Fontainebleau, as well as the first of two residencies at the MacDowell Colony.
Study at Fontainebleau (with Betsy Jolas and Dominique Troncin) was a turning point in Sierra’s development, honing her personal style with an international approach and a fascination with orchestration and sonority. She continued composition study in Berlin for two years before receiving her doctoral degree and settling in London. Sierra’s work in Britain began with fellowships at Dartington, where she studied with Judith Weir, and the Britten-Pears School at Aldeburgh, where she worked with Oliver Knussen, Colin Matthews and Magnus Lindberg.
2001 saw the introduction of Sierra’s music to the world stage: A work for large chamber ensemble "Ballistae" was featured in the London Sinfonietta’s State of the Nation weekend at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and an Otto Eckstein fellowship at Tanglewood led to several U.S. and world premieres, as well as work with Louis Andriessen. Her first orchestral work "Aquilo" won the 2001 Takemitsu Prize and was performed by the Tokyo Philharmonic and broadcast on NHK Radio; Sierra was the first woman to win this prestigious international competition for young composers.
Subsequent commissions included "Tiffany Windows," for the Albany Symphony, a Tanglewood Paul Jacobs Award commission "Neruda Settings," a Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival commission for Psappha and Sarah Leonard, "Hand mit Ringen," and a Meet the Composer commission "Truel I" for the Bakken Trio at the Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis. Over 2003-4 Sierra completed a major work for the Anita Cheng Dance Company, "Truel (Complete)", which had several performances at the Danspace Series of contemporary choreography in New York City. She also began a solo piano album "Birds and Insects" whose component pieces have had numerous international performances, a commercial recording by Clive Williamson, and featured as a test piece in the British Contemporary Piano Competition in 2006.
Dr Sierra taught Composition at Cambridge University in 2003-4 before her current appointment as Lecturer in Composition at Cardiff University School of Music. Recent commissions include a work for the Fenton Arts Trust and Kettle’s Yard Cambridge, "A Conflict of Opposites" (2005), "Cicada Shell" (2006) for the New Music Players and BMIC Cutting Edge, "Streets and Rivers" (2007) for baritone Jeremy Huw Williams and the RVW Trust, and "Surrounded Ground" (2008) for the Chroma Ensemble. Performers of Sierra’s music have also included the Gemini Ensemble, the Fidelio Trio, violinist Alexandra Wood, clarinetist Peter Furniss, cellists Zoe Martlew and Robin Michael, pianists Daniel Becker, Douglas Finch, Karis Stretton and Huw Watkins, soprano Marie Vasiliou, the Schubert Ensemble, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.
Dance and movement are continuing preoccupations in Sierra’s music; she studied dance from a young age and composes with an emphasis on the physicality of music through rhythm, syncopation, and momentum. Electro-acoustic composition remains an influence, notably through the use of densely layered, flexible ostinato patterns and naturally sourced sounds such as those that feature in "Birds and Insects" and "Cicada Shell." Her work’s dramatic character is derived in part from unusual sources including games of probability, blueprints for ancient weapons, and historical and mythical conflicts. A recent series of pieces, including "The Art of Lightness," "Cicada Shell" and "Surrounded Ground," is based on military concepts from Sun Tzu’s "The Art of War" and "The Thirty-Six Strategies." These sources provide impetus for drama and a strict sense of order and movement, expressed as a protest against present-day conflicts and a plea for peace and resolution.
In the past year Sierra’s work has been featured in portraits by New York Public Radio ("Spotlight on: Arlene Sierra"), broadcasts of performances on BBC Radio Three, and a Showcase concert at the Crush Room, Royal Opera House, London. In 2007 she received a Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters with the following citation: "Arlene Sierra’s music is, by turns, urgent, poetic, evocative, and witty. She has a keen appreciation of instrumental sonorities and the inherent drama of successive musical atmospheres. Intriguing, passionate, mysterious, her recent work, Cicada Shell, confidently announces the arrival of a significant composer."
Projects for the 2008 and 2009 seasons include new works for soprano Claire Booth, the International Contemporary Ensemble (U.S.), a concerto to be premiered by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Huw Watkins, piano, and a chamber opera "Faustine" in development with Opera Genesis and ROH2, Covent Garden.
