Kirkland Snider, Sarah - Forward Into Light

Sarah Kirkland Snider’s fifth full-length LP is an all-orchestral album featuring four of Snider’s orchestral works: Forward Into Light, a commission for the New York Philharmonic inspired by the American women’s suffrage movement; the string orchestra and harp (Noël Wan) version of Drink the Wild Ayre, a reimagining of the string quartet Snider wrote for the Emerson String Quartet as the ensemble’s final commission; Eye of Mnemosyne, a multimedia orchestral work on memory, innovation, and culture as refracted through the lens of photography, commissioned by the Rochester Philharmonic; and Something for the Dark, a meditation on resilience, commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra after Snider won its Lebenbom Competition in 2014.
 
Snider, deemed ‘one of new music’s leading names’ (Gramophone), writes music of direct expression and dramatic narrative that has been hailed as ‘rapturous’ (New York Times), ‘groundbreaking’ (Boston Globe), and ‘ravishingly beautiful’ (NPR). With an attention to detail that is ‘as intricate and exquisite as a spider’s web’ (BBC Music Magazine), her music synthesizes diverse influences to render a nuanced command of immersive storytelling.
 
“I chose to create an album of these four works because they share themes of perseverance, alliance, and evolution through dark and light – concepts that have been at the forefront of my mind in recent years,” Sarah Kirkland Snider says. “Beyond that, there are musical connections: three of the works feature certain motivic ideas that have haunted me over the past few years, appearing in different guises across projects.”
 
The album has been recorded with 21st century listeners in mind. Snider states: “Some of my most vivid memories of feeling awake and alive – whether walking city streets as an adult or lying in the dark on the floor in my childhood bedroom – have been inspired by listening to orchestral music recordings on headphones. In some ways, I’ve loved listening this way even more than live, because it feels private and personal – like a dream you can revisit in any way, at any time. Since childhood, I’ve longed to be on the other side of that alchemical exchange, creating sonic journeys that a listener can personalize in even the most mundane settings.
 
When I began thinking about recording my own orchestral music, I knew I wanted a sonically immersive, dynamic, and intricate listening experience – one in which the subtlest orchestration details and tempo changes could be fully realized. To that end, Metropolis and I recorded this music with intentionally idiosyncratic approaches to isolation and tempo mapping, maximizing control over individual lines without sacrificing musicality or expressivity. With that freedom, the mix became painstakingly detailed – but also deeply gratifying.”