PRESS
ESSAYS ON HER LIFE AND MUSIC
Kirsten Soriano was interviewed about her life and music by Voyage Dallas. Read the article.
Kirsten wrote the essay, Finding My Voice as a Composer and a Glimpse into the Natura cycle for the International Alliance for Women in Music Journal and was featured on the cover of their spring 2016 issue. Read her essay.
ANNOUNCEMENTS, PRESS QUOTES, REVIEWS AND INTERVIEWS
Film Premiere: "Breaking the Code: The Art of Vernon Fisher." Publisher’s Note: Glasstire is pleased to be the exclusive digital distributor for Michael Flanagan’s award-winning documentary Breaking the Code: The Art of Vernon Fisher, which chronicles the life and work of the iconic Texas artist..."
CREDITS:
Produced and Directed: Michael Flanagan
Executive Producer: Bob Ackerly
Associate Producer: Jeremy Rovny
Edited: J. Lee Scurry
Director of Photography: Davin Fitch
Original Music: Kirsten Soriano
Read the full announcement
“In the Mis-Lead production, the audience will have the opportunity to hear from inspirational heroes such as Luis Sepulveda, who has dedicated his life to the West Dallas community through activism, advocacy, and community outreach, and Janie Cisneros, who is the leader of the West Dallas community group Singleton United/Unidos. The narrative for the production is largely chronological and the narrative and texts that the choir sings come from a wide range of sources including lyrics that were inspired by Luis Sepulveda’s testimony in Washington D.C., articles, dissertations, air sensor readings, interviews with people in the film, and poetry that I found with similar themes and concepts that help provide context and expression to the narrative (Kimberly Richard, NBC News).” Read the full article
"This weekend, the choral group Verdigris Ensemble will tell its story through a collaborative mixed media performance called Mis-Lead at the Kalita Humphreys Theater. It is a novel approach to a complicated topic. The 60-minute piece weaves music composed by Kirsten Soriano with recorded interviews from West Dallas community members. It includes poetry, visual projections, Dallas City Council transcripts, and a documentary by the director Michael Flanagan. All the components tell the story of a community that is still suffering the effects of environmental injustice.During the production, 16 singers will sing lyrics taken from the poetry of Maya Angelou and Octavio Paz. They will use buckets, oil barrels, and other tools as percussion. Interspersed in the production is film and still photos from West Dallas, newspaper clips, on-camera interviews with community members, and transcripts from public meetings (Bethany Erickson, Dallas Magazine)." Read the full story
"Verdigris commissioned composer Kirsten Soriano for the performance. She says the inspiration for the piece “Air Particulates” came after she read a story about Janie Cisneros from KERA. After talking with Cisneros about how the air quality affected her family’s everyday activities, Soriano began combing through Dallas air quality records.“I was trying to think of what would be a meaningful way of incorporating some data from that air sensor into a song,” Soriano says. “I found the worst day, and I think it was May 17 [2023]. That afternoon the air particulates shot up to over 8,000 (Michaela Rush, Dallas Free Press).” Read the full story
"Verdigris Ensemble received $40,000 for Mis-Lead, composed by Kirsten Soriano. The choral ensemble will present the world premiere performance of the piece from April 5-7, 2024. This stunningly sobering account of West Dallas’s lead-infused past shines a light on one of the most impactful environmental challenges in the City's history. In collaboration with Dallas Free Press - using eye-witness accounts, newspaper articles, city council transcripts, and community conversations - Verdigris mixes bilingual poetry with docu-journalism to chronicle a community in need. This dynamic new work honors the generations of Dallasites affected by lead-smelting, reminding us that the first step to environmental justice starts at home (Kimberly Richard, NBC News)." Read the full announcement
"Her music has been described as haunting, stunning, and picturesque even ineffable. It casts a spell on us that leaves time behind, taking us into a different kind of present, a different kind of now (Alison Young, Minnesota Public Radio)." Hear the story audio
"Whether you're a believer in fate or not, you kind of have to think Kirsten was meant to be a composer. Even since a young age it seemed inevitable … (Trevor Hunter, New Music Box)." Read the full article.
Along with illustrations, the film had an original score reminiscent of Egyptian scales and harmonies, but also maintained a Western influence. The score came from Kirsten, a composer and associate professor of composition at UNT. “I have always dreamt of composing for film, as I am extremely passionate about films and film music,” (she) said. “I discovered an Egyptian scale that had the same pitches as a popular Western scale, but they simply had different tonics, so I composed themes from that harmonic perspective.” Read the full article.
"The standout composition on the program was "Ethers" for horn, cello, and percussion by Ensemble Dal Niente founder Kirsten. It was a beautifully understated, spectral piece that built up harmonic constructions with a sharp ear for the timbres of the instruments." (Devin Hurd, New Music Box). Read the full article.
“The real gem here is "Constellations," by Kirsten. This delightfully evocative partita artfully introduces icy, nebulously related clusters and after some otherworldly upper-register explorations watches the universe expand and cool down even further (Alan Young, Lucid Culture)." Read the full article.
“A homage to Grisey’s 1994-6 work Vortex Temporum, Broberg uses French horn overtones—wonderfully supplied by soloist Bernhard Scully—within a twelve-string soundscape punctuated by percussion that included cow bells and glockenspiel. The piece builds in dynamics and shifts from tentative whole tones to an extended climactic triumph of the tonal triad (Dennis Polkow, Chicago Classical Review)." Read the full article.
"Broberg explained that the inspiration for her Celestial Dawning had been Holst’s The Planets, which was clearly evident in the great wash of sound she favored through (Susan Elliot, Classical Voice America)." Read the full article.
"First up was 'Celestial Dawning,' a piece by Kirsten. She currently teaches at the University of North Texas, but she's originally from White Bear Lake ... 'Hearing her composition performed by an orchestra of this caliber is a dream come true,' she said. She's learned a huge amount and will use the experience to refine her piece (Evan Kerr, Minnesota Public Radio)." Hear the story audio.
"Kirsten from White Bear Lake, the only Minnesota composer in this year's group, paints silvery, glistening sounds in her "Celestial Dawning (Michael Anthony, Minneapolis Star Tribune)." Read the full article.
"Dal Niente became more organized and busier. Broberg went on to become the ensemble’s first executive director in 2009, and in 2010, the group made an award-winning appearance at International Festival for New Music in Darmstadt, which has long been associated with the most celebrated names in new music (It has since returned twice)." (Hannah Edgar, The Chicago Maroon). Read the full article.
“The increasingly prolific Kirsten Broberg also premiered her Origins, a stunning and picturesque five-movement work for mixed winds and strings (Bryant Manning, Chicago Classical Review). Read the full article.
"… Breathturn, by Chicago-based composer Kirsten Broberg, 30, which set five Paul Celan poems, expressing life and death matters, in a continuous piece that made you rethink what constitutes singing (David Patrick Stearns, the Philadephia Enquirer)." Read the full article.
"Kirsten has embraced the spectral approach in her own works: 'I am interested in drawing harmonic material from various spectra, such as an overtone series that I develop in a cycle,' Broberg says (Doyle Armbrust, Time Out Chicago)." Read the full article.
“Kirsten,, founder of new-music ensemble dal niente, is no such snob. Earlier this year at the Green Mill, her contemporary ensemble delivered an anguished take on Radiohead’s “Nude,” with Masahito Sugihara’s sax standing in for Thom Yorke’s vocals (Bryant Manning, Time Out Chicago)." Read the full article.
"I did not know (her) music beforehand, but now I want to know more of it. This was a sensitive, beautiful work that took advantage of the capabilities of the ensemble (Wes Flynn, Sequenza 21)." Read the full article.
“This ensemble just returned from Darmstadt, Germany, where it was presented with the Young Ensembles Award during the city’s New Music Summer Course, an esteemed symposium of lectures and premieres of new music, thereby elevating Chicago’s new-music cred internationally. Founded in 2004 by composer Kirsten, the group is now in residency as a kind of house band for Columbia College, giving the young artists in director Marcos Balter’s composition program a world-class group of instrumentalists to perform their works, rather than a lifeless MIDI keyboard (Doyle Armbrust, Time Out Chicago)." View the original link.
CREDITS:
Produced and Directed: Michael Flanagan
Executive Producer: Bob Ackerly
Associate Producer: Jeremy Rovny
Edited: J. Lee Scurry
Director of Photography: Davin Fitch
Original Music: Kirsten Soriano
Read the full announcement
“In the Mis-Lead production, the audience will have the opportunity to hear from inspirational heroes such as Luis Sepulveda, who has dedicated his life to the West Dallas community through activism, advocacy, and community outreach, and Janie Cisneros, who is the leader of the West Dallas community group Singleton United/Unidos. The narrative for the production is largely chronological and the narrative and texts that the choir sings come from a wide range of sources including lyrics that were inspired by Luis Sepulveda’s testimony in Washington D.C., articles, dissertations, air sensor readings, interviews with people in the film, and poetry that I found with similar themes and concepts that help provide context and expression to the narrative (Kimberly Richard, NBC News).” Read the full article
"This weekend, the choral group Verdigris Ensemble will tell its story through a collaborative mixed media performance called Mis-Lead at the Kalita Humphreys Theater. It is a novel approach to a complicated topic. The 60-minute piece weaves music composed by Kirsten Soriano with recorded interviews from West Dallas community members. It includes poetry, visual projections, Dallas City Council transcripts, and a documentary by the director Michael Flanagan. All the components tell the story of a community that is still suffering the effects of environmental injustice.During the production, 16 singers will sing lyrics taken from the poetry of Maya Angelou and Octavio Paz. They will use buckets, oil barrels, and other tools as percussion. Interspersed in the production is film and still photos from West Dallas, newspaper clips, on-camera interviews with community members, and transcripts from public meetings (Bethany Erickson, Dallas Magazine)." Read the full story
"Verdigris commissioned composer Kirsten Soriano for the performance. She says the inspiration for the piece “Air Particulates” came after she read a story about Janie Cisneros from KERA. After talking with Cisneros about how the air quality affected her family’s everyday activities, Soriano began combing through Dallas air quality records.“I was trying to think of what would be a meaningful way of incorporating some data from that air sensor into a song,” Soriano says. “I found the worst day, and I think it was May 17 [2023]. That afternoon the air particulates shot up to over 8,000 (Michaela Rush, Dallas Free Press).” Read the full story
"Verdigris Ensemble received $40,000 for Mis-Lead, composed by Kirsten Soriano. The choral ensemble will present the world premiere performance of the piece from April 5-7, 2024. This stunningly sobering account of West Dallas’s lead-infused past shines a light on one of the most impactful environmental challenges in the City's history. In collaboration with Dallas Free Press - using eye-witness accounts, newspaper articles, city council transcripts, and community conversations - Verdigris mixes bilingual poetry with docu-journalism to chronicle a community in need. This dynamic new work honors the generations of Dallasites affected by lead-smelting, reminding us that the first step to environmental justice starts at home (Kimberly Richard, NBC News)." Read the full announcement
"Her music has been described as haunting, stunning, and picturesque even ineffable. It casts a spell on us that leaves time behind, taking us into a different kind of present, a different kind of now (Alison Young, Minnesota Public Radio)." Hear the story audio
"Whether you're a believer in fate or not, you kind of have to think Kirsten was meant to be a composer. Even since a young age it seemed inevitable … (Trevor Hunter, New Music Box)." Read the full article.
Along with illustrations, the film had an original score reminiscent of Egyptian scales and harmonies, but also maintained a Western influence. The score came from Kirsten, a composer and associate professor of composition at UNT. “I have always dreamt of composing for film, as I am extremely passionate about films and film music,” (she) said. “I discovered an Egyptian scale that had the same pitches as a popular Western scale, but they simply had different tonics, so I composed themes from that harmonic perspective.” Read the full article.
"The standout composition on the program was "Ethers" for horn, cello, and percussion by Ensemble Dal Niente founder Kirsten. It was a beautifully understated, spectral piece that built up harmonic constructions with a sharp ear for the timbres of the instruments." (Devin Hurd, New Music Box). Read the full article.
“The real gem here is "Constellations," by Kirsten. This delightfully evocative partita artfully introduces icy, nebulously related clusters and after some otherworldly upper-register explorations watches the universe expand and cool down even further (Alan Young, Lucid Culture)." Read the full article.
“A homage to Grisey’s 1994-6 work Vortex Temporum, Broberg uses French horn overtones—wonderfully supplied by soloist Bernhard Scully—within a twelve-string soundscape punctuated by percussion that included cow bells and glockenspiel. The piece builds in dynamics and shifts from tentative whole tones to an extended climactic triumph of the tonal triad (Dennis Polkow, Chicago Classical Review)." Read the full article.
"Broberg explained that the inspiration for her Celestial Dawning had been Holst’s The Planets, which was clearly evident in the great wash of sound she favored through (Susan Elliot, Classical Voice America)." Read the full article.
"First up was 'Celestial Dawning,' a piece by Kirsten. She currently teaches at the University of North Texas, but she's originally from White Bear Lake ... 'Hearing her composition performed by an orchestra of this caliber is a dream come true,' she said. She's learned a huge amount and will use the experience to refine her piece (Evan Kerr, Minnesota Public Radio)." Hear the story audio.
"Kirsten from White Bear Lake, the only Minnesota composer in this year's group, paints silvery, glistening sounds in her "Celestial Dawning (Michael Anthony, Minneapolis Star Tribune)." Read the full article.
"Dal Niente became more organized and busier. Broberg went on to become the ensemble’s first executive director in 2009, and in 2010, the group made an award-winning appearance at International Festival for New Music in Darmstadt, which has long been associated with the most celebrated names in new music (It has since returned twice)." (Hannah Edgar, The Chicago Maroon). Read the full article.
“The increasingly prolific Kirsten Broberg also premiered her Origins, a stunning and picturesque five-movement work for mixed winds and strings (Bryant Manning, Chicago Classical Review). Read the full article.
"… Breathturn, by Chicago-based composer Kirsten Broberg, 30, which set five Paul Celan poems, expressing life and death matters, in a continuous piece that made you rethink what constitutes singing (David Patrick Stearns, the Philadephia Enquirer)." Read the full article.
"Kirsten has embraced the spectral approach in her own works: 'I am interested in drawing harmonic material from various spectra, such as an overtone series that I develop in a cycle,' Broberg says (Doyle Armbrust, Time Out Chicago)." Read the full article.
“Kirsten,, founder of new-music ensemble dal niente, is no such snob. Earlier this year at the Green Mill, her contemporary ensemble delivered an anguished take on Radiohead’s “Nude,” with Masahito Sugihara’s sax standing in for Thom Yorke’s vocals (Bryant Manning, Time Out Chicago)." Read the full article.
"I did not know (her) music beforehand, but now I want to know more of it. This was a sensitive, beautiful work that took advantage of the capabilities of the ensemble (Wes Flynn, Sequenza 21)." Read the full article.
“This ensemble just returned from Darmstadt, Germany, where it was presented with the Young Ensembles Award during the city’s New Music Summer Course, an esteemed symposium of lectures and premieres of new music, thereby elevating Chicago’s new-music cred internationally. Founded in 2004 by composer Kirsten, the group is now in residency as a kind of house band for Columbia College, giving the young artists in director Marcos Balter’s composition program a world-class group of instrumentalists to perform their works, rather than a lifeless MIDI keyboard (Doyle Armbrust, Time Out Chicago)." View the original link.