Carolyn Quick

Carolyn Quick
(she/her)

Portland-based composer and soprano Carolyn Quick (she/her) is “a composer of growing renown” (Dr. Justin Smith) and “one of the most important voices in our community” (Makrokosmos Project). With her “deft touch at crafting melodies and textures,” Carolyn’s music has “a refreshing levity to its rhythms” (Charles Rose, Oregon ArtsWatch). She writes music that is “deeply meaningful,” making a “huge impact on both singers and audiences” (Smith) as she “combines flowing modal melodies,” and “evocative text painting” (Rose). Recent commissions include the Portland Phoenix Chamber Choir, Fear No Music, Eugene Opera, and Queens University of Charlotte’s Royal Voices, who featured her work in their winning competition set at the 28th International Choir Competition of Preveza in Greece, where it received the Special Jury Prize for Best Performance of a Contemporary Piece.

Throughout her work as a composer and vocalist, Carolyn advocates for historically excluded composers and their music and co-founded new music collective Persisting Sound and music distribution collective Raindrop New Music to uplift those voices.

Most recently, Carolyn was selected to participate in both the National Association of Teachers of Singing Composer Mentorship Program and the Seattle Opera Jane Lang Davis Creation Lab. For her NATS mentorship, she wrote a work setting text by poet JCCortens, which premiered alongside 11 other works in Cincinnati Song Initiative’s Let It Be New concert series. She is now working on a 20-minute opera to be premiered this June at the culmination of the Seattle Opera Jane Lang Davis Creation Lab, libretto by Raya Tuffaha.