Transdisciplinary artist and director Amy Beth Kirsten is motivated by curiosity. Whether she is composing large scale works for the stage, collaborating with chamber ensembles on multimedia projects, or creating visual art – and shadowpuppetry films – Kirsten dives headfirst into extensive and immersive research on her subject of interest.
It has led her to create sprawling productions like QUIXOTE, a grotesque imagining of the timeless Cervantes character on his deathbed; and the evening-length Alarm Will Sound collaboration Jacob in Chains, a present-day ghost story muddling myth and spirituality. Embedded in all of her projects is a sense of narrative and world-building, with complex characters and stories brought to life through a combination of factual evidence, historical preservation, and her own artistic sensibilities.
Kirsten takes on double-duty by writing the libretti for her theatrical works. Her affinity for words and music was unearthed at a young age. “Growing up, there wasn’t a lot of extra money for lessons, but I remember singing in choir at school and listening to the radio,” she told me in our recent interview.
“I could hear an Elton John song and remember all the lyrics, even when I was super young.” When she was in sixth grade, her mother brought home a beat-up piano from an ad in the paper, and Kirsten was unknowingly thrust into the world of composition. “I started writing music – but I didn’t know that’s what I was doing. I would improvise and play things for hours. I was a sponge then.”
In college, she enrolled in a “hardcore” vocal jazz program. Being the only vocalist for several years, she was placed with the trumpets and learned to treat her voice as an instrument. Partially in secret, Kirsten would spend time locked away in practice rooms writing pop songs, and after hearing the International Contemporary Ensemble perform “Eight Songs for a Mad King” by Peter Maxwell Davies, she decided to professionally pursue composition.
Amy Beth Kirsten — Photo by Gennadi Novash, courtesy of Peak Performances at Montclair State University, 2017
With the Chicago-based, Grammy-award winning sextet Eighth Blackbird in 2010, Kirsten was compelled to consider physicality and optics in performance. She observed the musicians’ responses to her music, discerning how the relationships to their instruments and to the space worked in tandem to both sonically and visually express the narrative.
“We would try things, and I would video record all those sessions and take that information home with me to make edits. I was constantly responding to them, the sounds, and ways they moved; as well as ideas from [the production team.]” She did this over the span of three years, until the unsettling, fantastical, and uniquely stylized Columbine’s Paradise Theater, invoking modernized Commedia dell’Arte, was premiered.
This type of close, interdisciplinary collaboration stuck with Kirsten as she embarked on multiyear theatrical productions with a plethora of teams, ensembles, and institutions. While everything is still music-driven, she rejects the stereotypical hierarchy and siloing of roles where “the text comes first, then the composer responds to the text, and then the design elements start to come to life,” she explains.
Instead, she employs what she calls an “anti-grand opera” approach. “Everyone is involved from the beginning and we influence each other.” When working on a libretto, she is simultaneously workshopping the music and revising along the way, rather than setting the text after the fact. She leans into the different facets of her creativity, and isn’t afraid to navigate any role in the process. “There’s a lot of push and pull between who I am at any given moment when creating the piece.”
Kirsten’s lifelong pursuit of musicality and learning makes her a natural educator, too. “One of the most important roles I have as a composition teacher is to be an observer. We talk about intent and whether it matches up with this one spectator’s understanding. That opens up other possibilities for thinking and experimenting and play.” She encourages her students at The Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School to slow down as she does, and to follow the threads of creativity in response to recordings, playback, and other modes of real-time feedback.
On May 10 at Curtis, Kirsten will present her newest work, Infernal Angel, commissioned in collaboration with Curtis Opera Theatre to celebrate the school’s 100th year anniversary. The piece is part of a thrilling diptych along with the haunting and quietly commanding Savior (2018), which both are inspired by Kirsten’s obsession with Joan of Arc. “Looking back over the subjects I’ve tended to choose for these larger works, the subject matter is usually something that is kind of ubiquitous. We have some vague notion of who these people are – there are these sort of loose fragments of information floating around, but also a sense that ‘I don’t know anything about this.’ That intense curiosity is very compelling.”
Amy Beth Kirsten — Courtesy of Artist
Extending upon the knowledge she procured from her research on Joan, Infernal Angel tackles her companion in arms Gilles de Rais – who is allegedly the model for the classic Bluebeard tale. The piece is situated somewhere in the obfuscation of truth and fiction. Bluebeard is known to be a mass-murderer of children, whereas the real-life version, de Rais, was falsely accused by the Inquisition to benefit the State. “It’s a bit of historical fiction, whereas with Joan of Arc we have so much evidence of her life because of the trials. With Gilles de Rais, I found a way to tell the story through these huge holes with what could have happened.”
Written for baritone voice, flute, bass clarinet, trumpet, cello, trombone, percussion, and vocal sextet, Infernal Angel requires each performer to tap into their own dimensionality. The sold-out world premiere will feature baritone Ty Bouque as de Rais. Throughout the piece, Bouque’s role shifts between vocal lines and instrumental parts; and between musician, actor, and dancer. The vocal sextet exists only as part of the sound design – all of their performances are pre-recorded and woven into the live sonic elements. The fluidity of Kirsten’s process is mirrored by the cross-genre, cross-disciplinary demands of the musicians on stage.
Across all of Kirsten’s storytelling and creative endeavors, she still manages to nurture an intrinsic wonder about – and openness to – the world and the people in it. “I’ve learned so much from these deep collaborations in which I get to be super vulnerable, and have the benefit of all these brains and hearts and philosophies weighing in on the process. It satiates a kind of hunger I have for learning and being open to another person’s experience of what it is I’m trying to do.”
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