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Forward Into Light

SARAH KIRKLAND SNIDER

Released 27 February 2026

Nonesuch Records

*****

Four exceptional pieces of modern classical compositions: this is music of human dignity and hope that stares unwaveringly into the abyss of uncertainty and dares to see light where others see none.​​​​

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Described by Pitchfork as "one of the decade's more gifted, up-and-coming modern classical composers" Sarah Kirkland Snider writes music of direct expression and vivid narrative that has been hailed as "rapturous" by The New York Times, "groundbreaking" by The Boston Globe, and "poignant, deeply personal" by The New Yorker. Born 1975 and raised in Princeton, New Jersey to non-musical parents, her self-professed musical itch propelled her from a young age to knock on her neighbours’ doors to play their pianos by ear.

Now in her second decade as a professional composer, Snider's musical compositions, particularly her song cycles, frequently borrow from indie rock and popular musical idioms as well as classical chamber music forms and instrumentation. These stylistic choices have led critics to label her music as part of the burgeoning indie-classical movement, where she has been called "perhaps the most sophisticated" of voices within this genre.

Her debut album "Penelope" (2010), inspired by Homer’s epic poem, the Odyssey, drew wide critical acclaim and commercial success. It was described by Pitchfork’s Jayson Greene as "a gorgeous piece of music and hauntingly vivid psychological portrait”. Her succeeding albums have been similarly received: “Unremembered” (2015) - "a meditation on memory, innocence, and the haunted grandeur of the natural world" that features poet Nathaniel Bellows's moving words and images and Snider's vivid, fraught, astonishing score; “Mass for the Endangered” (2020) - written for Trinity Church Wall Street’s Mass Re-Imaginings project and “The Blue Hour” (2022) - a collaborative song cycle written with Rachel Grimes, Angélica Negrón, Shara Nova and Caroline Shaw and performed by vocalist Shara Nova and Boston–based chamber orchestra A Far Cry, based on text by Carolyn Forché.

Snider writes that she chose the four works for “Forward Into Light” "because “they share themes of perseverance, alliance, and evolution through dark and light, concepts that had been at the forefront of my mind in recent years”. These include: the title track - commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and inspired by the American women’s suffrage movement; "Drink the Wild Ayre", a reimagining of her second string quartet, performed by string orchestra and harp; "Eye of Mnemosyne", an eight-part, 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 in two parts, commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 2014. 

This is music of and for this uncertain moment, as we are reminded daily of sources of global gloom and doom - economic, environmental, conflict, terror, pandemic... Indeed, as I write, we are receiving news reports of missile exchanges between Middle East countries where I lived and/or worked professionally, only a decade ago. In this context of global uncertainty, the narrative arc of "Forward Into Light" is enduringly positive: from its recollection of womens' suffrage in the opening/title track, to the confidence of the final pieces "Something For The Dark: Part I. The Promise" and Part II. Of Rise and Renewal". ​​

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