Annie Gosfield is a New York-based composer dubbed “a one woman Hadron collider” by the BBC, and “a master of musical feedback” by the New York Times. Gosfield has created site-specific work for factories, researched jammed radio signals, and composed opera, chamber, and orchestral music. Recent projects include the multi-site opera War of the Worlds with Yuval Sharon, Sigourney Weaver, and the L.A. Philharmonic; a song cycle adapted from the opera, titled The Secret Life of Planets: Heavenly Bodies and Earthly Gossip premiered by the LA Phil; Detroit Industry, a large-scale chamber work inspired by and performed under Diego Rivera’s murals; and a residency sponsored by the League of American Orchestras.
Annie’s music is often inspired by the inherent beauty of found sounds, noise, and machinery. The New York Times wrote “Ms. Gosfield’s choice of sounds — which on this occasion included radio static, the signals transmitted by the Soviet satellite Sputnik I, and recordings of Hurricane Sandy — are never a mere gimmick. Her extraordinary command of texture and timbre means that whether she is working with a solo cello or with the ensemble she calls her 21st-century avant noisy dream band, she is able to conjure up a palette of saturated and heady hues.” Annie works closely with some of new music’s finest interpreters, and performs with her own group, mixing electronics with acoustic and electric instruments.
Gosfield has received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, The Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy in Rome, the American Academy in Berlin, and The Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Annie has four ambitious portrait albums on the Tzadik label, which feature music that ranges from a chamber cello concerto, to EWA7, an industrial-inspired concert-length piece for her band. Gosfield was a visiting lecturer at Columbia University from 2109-2021, and has taught composition at Princeton University, CalArts, UT Austin, Indiana University, and held the Milhaud Chair of composition at Mills College in 2003 and 2005.
