Every single one of my works is born from a close collaboration of equals. Whether I’m writing for a single performance or a multi-year composer residency project, working with fellow artists is the lifeblood of what I do. These relationships impact everything from stylistic choices to the texts and subject matter I choose to set. Colleagues become friends and close confidants - or in the case of soprano Heidi Moss Erickson, my wife!
A new composition isn’t just a means for self-expression, but an opportunity to reinvent the repertoire and communicate on a deeply personal level what it means to live in the beauty and chaos of the modern world.
Now more than ever, we need the arts for solace and comfort.
The great bluegrass artist Mary Gauthier once said “When you go past the personal to the deeply personal, you get to the universal”. That’s not only a beautiful quote, it’s also a near-perfect summation of my approach. As cliche as it sounds, music grounds us and connects us to one another in ways that have a profound impact on our lives.
Thank you for stopping by and please do feel free to check out some of my music. Drop me a line and I look forward to hearing from you!
ABOUT
Composer Kurt Erickson specializes in writing works for multi-disciplinary collaborative projects. His song set Here, Bullet has been performed across the globe and occupies a unique place in the classical music world as a composition being turned into a short film, as a vehicle for veterans arts therapy programs, and the recipient of the First Prize Award in the 2020 NATS Art Song Composition Competition. Erickson currently serves as Composer-in-Residence with San Francisco’s LIEDER ALIVE! He has designed and implemented over fifteen years of multi-year composer residencies with a wide assortment of performing arts organizations, dance companies, and cathedrals and national shrines. Erickson has been called “a composer at the height of his powers” and his music has been described as “haunting and poetic”, “gripping”, “genuinely moving”; with one author writing that a performance “moved this reviewer to tears”. His work Seventeen Minutes and Twenty-Two Seconds was written for a consortium of twenty pianists and opened the fifth season of the San Francisco International Piano Festival. Recent performances of his music have been heard at Deutsche Oper Berlin, at colleges across the country, and on classical music radio programs and podcasts. He is a frequent performer and collaborator with his wife, acclaimed soprano and scientist Heidi Moss Erickson.
A Quick Listen
