composer | resident Artist
KATHLEEN TAGG
Kathleen Tagg is a New York-based composer, pianist and producer from South Africa. Her work has been heard in major venues and festivals on five continents, and commissions have included the Santa Rosa and Eugene Symphony Orchestras, Cape Philharmonic Orchestra, New Century Chamber Orchestra, Royal Netherlands Marine band, Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival and more.
She has performed around the world with artists from very different genres and disciplines, and is becoming known for her bold collaborations and her distinctive sound that mixes together acoustic and electronic sounds, loops, samples and extended techniques she developed. She is equally at home performing in major concert halls such as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center or in alternative arts spaces, fulfilling commissions for leading artists and ensembles, writing for her own projects and collaborations, creating narrative immersive interdisciplinary performance works, or writing for film and theater. All of her projects reflect her strong desire to connect as a human being first and foremost.
With long-time collaborator David Krakauer, she co-composed and produced the score for Minyan by Eric Steel (Berlin Biennale 2020; Grand Jury Award for Outstanding U.S. Narrative Feature: OutFest LA) ; as well as an immersive multimedia concert experience with 360-degree spatialized sound design with video designer Jesse Gilbert, The Ties that Bind Us, for the Pierre Boulez Saal, Berlin.
Recent commissions include a song cycle (commissioned by and for soprano Golda Schultz and pianist Jonathan Ware to words by Lila Palmer) heard at the Lucerne Festival, Festival D'Aix-en-Provence; Kölner Philharmonie; Melbourne Opera House, and Wigmore Hall amongst others, as well as The Fretless Clarinet: Concerto for Klezmer Clarinet and Orchestra, co-composed with David Krakauer and performed by the Santa Rosa and Eugene Symphonies, Orchestre de la Nouvelle-Aquitaine at the Paris Philharmonie, Sinfonia Varsovia and Orchestra National de Bretagne.
Additional productions include the co-creation of genre-crossing project Krakauer & Tagg's Good Vibes Explosion that has appeared at venues in Europe and the USA such as Paris’ Théâtre du Châtelet, Jazz a Vienne and the Princeton Festival. Other large-scale works include pieces for the Marine Band of the Royal Netherlands Navy, Cape Philharmonic Orchestra, and arrangements for New Century Chamber Orchestra and Vienna Jewish Culture Fest. Her musical, Erika’s Wall, created with Sophie Jaff, received a developmental production by The Music Theater Company, Chicago.
Her recorded work appears on Table Pounding Records, NAXOS, Alpha Classics, Ossia Records and Label Bleu, and she is a member of ASCAP, the Dramatist Guild, Recording Academy and Chamber Music America, and is a former steering committee member of the Music Workers Alliance (for independent music workers), with whom she still organizes.
Her work in artistic dialogue includes residencies at Poland’s Borderlands Foundations, WITS School of the Arts, Johannesburg and Brandeis University’s Music Unites Us program. She was a 2014-2015 Dramatist Guild fellow, 2017 Con Ed Exploring the Metropolis Composer in Residence and inaugural artist-in-residence at Brown University Arts Initiative.
Upcoming Performances:
August 8, 2024: Suite from Minyan / Prayers and incantation Suite (World Premiere), Chiesa di Sant’Agostino(Siena, Italy), with David Krakauer and Allievi String Quartet.
August 24, 2024: Krakauer & Tagg Acoustic Duo Concert: Stift Festival (Netherlands),
November 2024: Good Vibes Explosion: EUROPEAN TOUR
November 19: La Seine Musicale, Boulogne, FRANCE
November 20: Limoges, FRANCE
November 23: Metz, FRANCE
January19-25, 2025: Dual-ing (World Premiere), commissioned by the 4th Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competition. International Glasshouse Centre for Music, Gateshead
Winter 2025: New work for cellist Matt Haimovitz (Recording and World Premiere)
March 25, 2025: The Fretless Clarinet, for klezmer clarinet and orchestra. Performed by David Krakauer & Kathleen Tagg with the Portland Symphony Orchestra
April 2025: Tagg's Berimbau and The Geyser. Detroit Institute of Art
May 2025: Instruments, with music by Kathleen Tagg and words by Malika Ndlovu (World Premiere). AfroClassics Festival; Winterthur, Switzerland
In Development/Current Commissions:
Rituals and Incantations: Immersive new project for Breath & Hammer with String Quartet and immersive electronics