Three Choirs Festival

Composer Sarah Kirkland Snider writes music of direct expression and vivid narrative that has been hailed as “rapturous” (The New York Times), “groundbreaking” (The Boston Globe), and “ravishingly beautiful” (NPR). Recently named one of the “Top 35 Female Composers in Classical Music” by The Washington Post, Snider’s works have been commissioned and/or performed by the New York Philharmonic; Boston Symphony Orchestra; Cleveland Orchestra; San Francisco Symphony; National Symphony Orchestra; Detroit Symphony Orchestra; Philharmonia Orchestra; Birmingham Royal Ballet and many others.

“Snider’s music lives in an increasingly populous inter-genre space that, as of yet, has produced only a few clear, confident voices. Snider is perhaps the most sophisticated of them all.” - Pitchfork

Among Snider’s most celebrated works are two albums of genre-defying orchestral song cycles: Penelope (New Amsterdam, 2010) and Unremembered (New Amsterdam, 2015). Penelope features vocalist Shara Nova and Ensemble Signal. Named the Top Classical Album of 2010 by Time Out New York and one of NPR’s Top Five Genre-Defying Albums of 2010, the album also drew acclaim from The New York Times,The Los Angeles Times, Gramophone Magazine,New York Magazine, and many others. Since its premiere, Penelope has received over 60 performances in the U.S. and abroad.

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 will be a Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University in Fall 2023. Her music is published by G. Schirmer.

At Worcester 2024, the Three Choirs Festival is due to perform the UK premiere of Sarah's Mass for the Endangered. You can listen to the piece and explore more of her music below.

Mass for the Endangered is a hymn for the voiceless and the discounted, a requiem for the not-yet-gone. Using original text by writer, visual artist, and musician, Nathaniel Bellows, in combination with the traditional Latin, Mass for the Endangered embodies a prayer for endangered animals and the imperiled environments in which they live.