Stereo Embers The Podcast 0397: Tanner Porter (Sufjan Steven’s ILLINOISE)

"Once Was Gleaming" The California-born Tanner Porter is a composer, arranger, performer, vocalist and songwriter. Her voice is otherwordly and wonderful, and set against her complex orchestral arrangements, it evokes everyone from Kate Bush to Tori Amos. Her debut album The Summer Sinks was a stone cold stunner and her new album Once Was Gleaming picks up where Summer left off, offering a stirring and moving song-cycle that's filled with breathtaking musical finesse, and almost cinematic compositional scope. Tanner’s orchestral music has been commissioned by the Louisville Orchestra, Albany Symphony Orchestra, the New York Youth Symphony, and Nu Deco Ensemble, among others. She's collaborated on ballets that were premiered by the Boston Ballet and the San Francisco Ballet, had short operas commisioned by Barnard College and Columbia University’s New Opera Workshop and she's been busy on Broadway in ILLINOISE, with music by Sufjan Stevens as a vocal/guitar understudy for two roles. Tanner has been a composer-in-residence with the Louisville Orchestra's 2023-2024 Creators Corps, a fellow of the Aspen Music Festival,and her works have been presented at Carnegie Hall, the New World Symphony’s New World Center, and the Prototype Festival. She was a 2019 recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Charles Ives Scholarship. Tanner holds degrees in composition from the University of Michigan and the Yale School of Music. Once Was Gleaming is as sweeping as it is dramatic, punctuated by strings and electronica and a voice that soars through it all with inexplicable beauty. It's revelatory work. www.tannerporter.com (http://www.tannerporter.com) www.bombshellradio.com www.stereoembersmagazine.com (http://www.stereoembersmagazine.com) www.alexgreenbooks.com Email: [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) Twitter: @emberseditor IG: @emberspodcast