3.4 - Amy Beth Kirsten

Amy Beth Kirsten is celebrated for her theatrical and conceptual approach to composition. Her music fuses voice, instrument, language, and movement into works that blur boundaries between concert, theatre, and ritual.

The 2025–26 concert season includes the completion of Eating the Underworld, a pop-song cycle for Bergamot Quartet and the composer as vocalist; the release of Misfit Toys, a grade 5 work for concert band; and her participation in the 2025 Midwest Clinic in Chicago.

Kirsten’s previous season featured the premiere of Infernal Angel, an opera created with the Curtis Opera Theatre and baritone Ty Boque, inspired by the life of Gilles de Rais and his relationship with Joan of Arc. Earlier evening-length works include Savior (2018), a mystical re-telling of the story of Joan of Arc commissioned for the 20th anniversary of Chicago Symphony’s MusicNOW and named to the Chicago Tribune’s “10 Best Classical Concerts of 2018”; QUIXOTE (2017), a 90-minute theatrical piece created during a residency at Montclair State University; and Colombine’s Paradise Theatre (2014), commissioned and produced by the multi-Grammy-winning eighth blackbird, praised by The Washington Post as a “tour de force” and by The New York Times as “dark, wild, and engrossing.” She made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2014 with strange pilgrims, a multimedia work for chorus, orchestra, and film.

In addition to her musical work, Kirsten is also a writer whose poetry has appeared in several journals. Writing as Aster Isler, she recently completed her full manuscript, Giving Up—the beginning of a parallel literary journey that threads through her compositional voice. Her poetry can be found in Oberon (2024), Sol Magazine (2010), Avatar Review (2009), and Red Wheelbarrow (2008).

Kirsten is also dedicated to mentoring the next generation of performing and creative artists. At The Juilliard School, she mentors composers and interdisciplinary creators through her composition studio and teaches two courses — Theatre Études and OperaCOMP. At The Curtis Institute of Music, she teaches individual composition lessons. Previous faculty posts include Oberlin College and Conservatory, the Peabody Institute, and Longy School of Music.

She lives in New Haven, Connecticut, with her beloved doodle-hound, Roux-ga-Roux and her slow-wandering orange cat, Higgs-B.

https://www.amybethkirsten.com