Kate Soper is a New York and Boston-based composer and performer. Her current compositional interests include the integration of drama and rhetoric into musical structure, the transformation of visceral gestures in and out of time, and the potential of the human voice to communicate abstractly (or not). She likes Machaut, Henry James, and immersive theatre, and has recently drawn inspiration from the artwork of Anselm Kiefer, the writings of Anne Carson, and the films of Carl Dryer. She is currently Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music at Columbia University and is Managing Director and vocalist for Wet Ink, a new music ensemble dedicated to seeking out and promoting innovative music across aesthetic categories.
Kate is a recipient of a 2012 Guggenheim Fellowship and winner of the 2012 Lili Boulanger Prize. She is currently at work on a commission for soprano and orchestra, which she will premiere as soprano soloist with the American Composers Orchestra in January 2013. A selection of her recent chamber works was chosen for Schott Music's Project Schott NY, a new publishing initiative that presents "a curated, highly selective collection of works by contemporary composers, instantly available for download." She has received awards from the Fromm Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Music Theory Society of New York State, and has been commissioned by Carnegie Hall, the Tanglewood Music Center/Boston University Tanglewood Institute, the Museum of Biblical Art, Yarn/Wire, and the Kenners. Her work has been performed by ensembles such as the American Composers Orchestra, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, S.E.M., the Ensemble Linea, the Knights string orchestra, Dinosaur Annex, the Due East Ensemble, the Second Instrumental Unit, and Newspeak. As a singer with experience in Western Classical and Indian Carnatik music, pop music, and improvisation, she performs frequently as a new music soprano and has performed in US and world premieres of works by Beat Furrer, George Lewis, Alex Mincek, and Lew Spratlan, among others. She also enjoys writing about music (and about other things): her article Orchestration in The Chamber Music of Ruth Crawford Seeger appeared in Music Theory and Practice Issue 35 in January 2011. You can read her article about the Domaine Forget Summer Academy here, and blog enteries for New Music Box here.
Kate will spend 2012-13 as a fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Higher Learning in Cambridge, MA. She was born and raised in Ann Arbor Michigan.