Sebastian Currier

Short Biography:
Grawemeyer Award–winning composer Sebastian Currier is known for writing "music with a distinctive voice" (New York Times) that is "lyrical, colorful, firmly rooted in tradition, but absolutely new" (Washington Post). His works have been performed by acclaimed artists and orchestras around the world, including Anne-Sophie Mutter, Kronos Quartet, Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and Netherlands Radio Philharmonic.

This season, Currier’s major new work for choir Mysterium is premiered by The Crossing and Donald Nally in Philadelphia. His recent piece Ongoingness for celebrated harpist Bridget Kibbey is performed by Kibbey and the Calidore Quartet in Philadelphia this April, and by Kibbey with the Dover Quartet at Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York.

Other recent premieres include Currier’s Beethoven-inspired Track 8 (2018) with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra; Waves (2020), a Virginia Woolf–inspired multimedia project for soprano, ensemble, and film; his violin concerto Aether (2018) for violinist Baiba Skride (co-commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra); and Ghost Trio (2018), premiered by violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, cellist Daniel Müller-Schott, and pianist Lambert Orkis at Carnegie Hall.

Currier’s music has been enthusiastically embraced by violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter who has commissioned, premiered, and recorded several of Currier’s pieces, including his "rapturously beautiful" (New York Times) violin concerto Time Machines, which was commissioned by Ms. Mutter, and premiered and recorded by the New York Philharmonic in 2011.

Awards include the Berlin Prize, Rome Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Currier has held residencies at the Institute for Advanced Studies, as well as the MacDowell and Yaddo colonies.

Sebastian Currier is published by Boosey & Hawkes.

September 2024
This biography can be reproduced free of charge in concert programs with the following credit: Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes.

Long Biography:
Grawemeyer Award–winning composer Sebastian Currier is known for writing "music with a distinctive voice" (New York Times) that is "lyrical, colorful, firmly rooted in tradition, but absolutely new" (Washington Post). His works have been performed by acclaimed artists and orchestras around the world, including Anne-Sophie Mutter, Kronos Quartet, Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and Netherlands Radio Philharmonic.

This season, Currier’s major new work for choir Mysterium is premiered by The Crossing and Donald Nally in Philadelphia. His recent piece Ongoingness for celebrated harpist Bridget Kibbey is performed by Kibbey and the Calidore Quartet in Philadelphia this April, and by Kibbey with the Dover Quartet at Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York.

Other recent premieres include Currier’s Beethoven-inspired Track 8 (2018) with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra; Waves (2020), a Virginia Woolf–inspired multimedia project for soprano, ensemble, and video; Voyage Out (2019) for piano quintet, premiered by the Seattle Chamber Music Society; his violin concerto Aether (2018) for violinist Baiba Skride (co-commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra); and Eleven Moons (2018), premiered by soprano Zorana Sadiq and Boston Musica Viva.

Currier’s music has been enthusiastically embraced by violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, for whom he wrote Ghost Trio, which she premiered alongside cellist Daniel Müller-Schott and pianist Lambert Orkis at Carnegie Hall. The New York Times wrote, “This work weaves glancing — and distorted — references to piano trios by Beethoven, Mendelssohn and others into his own intricate, emotionally focused language.” Currier also wrote the violin concerto Time Machines for Mutter and the New York Philharmonic, as well as Aftersong for violin and piano, which Mutter performed extensively in the US and Europe. The London Times wrote, "If all his pieces are as emotionally charged and ingenious in their use of rethought tonality as this, give me more."

Currier has had an extended association with the Berlin Philharmonic. In 2009 his harp concerto Traces, commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic, was premiered by harpist Marie-Pierre Langlamet under the baton of Donald Runnicles. He has written numerous pieces for Langlamet, which she has premiered at the Philharmonie alongside other members of the Berlin Philharmonic. In 2014, he also wrote Spark for the 12 Celli of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Currier has also composed several multimedia works: Nightmaze, based on a text of Thomas Bolt, envisions a protagonist rushing along a dark, enormous highway, where strange road signs loom up only to disappear into the night. The Philadelphia Inquirer remarked that "every turn is breathtaking" and the New York Times wrote, "Currier’s rich and imaginative music sets the right tone … hinting at distant reservoirs of emotion and yearning."

Recordings of Currier’s music include Time Machines, recorded by Anne-Sophie Mutter and the New York Philharmonic (Deutsche Grammophon), Next Atlantis with the Ying Quartet (Naxos), as well as the album On the Verge (Music from Copland House), which features his Grawemeyer Award–winning Static and other chamber works. His Quartetset / Quiet Time album, recorded by the Cassatt Quartet, “distances the present from the past, causing the listener to think about music itself” (New York Times).

Currier has received many prestigious awards including the Berlin Prize, Rome Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has held residencies at the Institute for Advanced Studies, as well as the MacDowell and Yaddo colonies. He received a DMA from the Juilliard School and from 1999-2007 taught at Columbia University. From 2013 to 2016, Currier served as the Artist-in-Residence at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, New Jersey.

Sebastian Currier is published by Boosey & Hawkes.

September 2024

This biography can be reproduced free of charge in concert programs with the following credit: Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes.