Kala Pierson is an American composer and sound artist. Vivid, expressive, and full of bold colors, her music has been performed in more than 30 countries on six continents, widely awarded and commissioned, and published by Universal Edition. Her music's "seductive textures and angular harmonies" (Washington Post) build into "massive chords throwing out a wall of sound, like a modern-day Gabrieli" (San Francisco Classical Voice), and her focus on setting documentary and culturally resonant texts leads to works of "marvellous political power" (Louis Andriessen). She's held season-long composer residencies with American Opera Projects, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, and San Francisco Choral Artists. In the 2016-17 season, she'll be the featured guest composer of Truman State University's New Horizons Festival; a resident at Yaddo, MacDowell, Hambidge, and the Britten-Pears Foundation; and a Big Sky Choral Initiative Composer Fellow with The Crossing. Her awards include those from the Mauricio Kagel International Composition Competition; New Music USA; American Composers Forum; ASCAP; and the Austrian, German, Serbian, and Swedish ministries of culture. Born in 1977, she studied composition at Eastman School of Music. She's a self-taught santur (Persian hammered dulcimer) player and a laptop/audio performer. She lives in Philadelphia with her spouses and son. Connect with her on social networks or at kalapierson.com.
Kala Pierson
Studios
Monday Music
Kala Pierson worked in the Monday Music studio.
Given to the residency by the Monday Music Club of Orange, NJ, Monday Music Studio is sited next to an enormous boulder deposited by glaciers thousands of years ago. A small dormer once pierced the east slope of the roof, but after damage suffered in the 1938 hurricane, the roof was rebuilt without the dormer. The interior…