Composer and performer Sabrina Schroeder (b. 1979, Vancouver, Canada) writes music for acoustic ensembles, electronic sound, and extended performance or installation environments. Maintaining a fascination with tactile sounds and unique gestural language, her work finds much of its underlying impulses in the grain of daily events, exploring patterns and synergies both on the surfaces and within more intuitive layers of perception.
Her work has been presented throughout North America and Europe by groups that include the Orchestra de Ereprijs (Netherlands), OCNM Ensemble (Czech Republic), Arraymusic Ensemble (Toronto), Frequenzen (Germany), and toured throughout Canada and Europe by Nadia Francavilla, and by Quatuor Bozzini (Montreal).
She has been an active and founding member of several composer-performer collectives including the duo Underbush and 12-piece collective SET, presenting both scored and improvised music. As an extension of these activities, she developed ‘578 John Street’ (Victoria, BC), a project and performance venue presenting work by emerging sound and visual artists. Schroeder ran this space, curating projects and events until relocating to the United States to attend grad school at Wesleyan University (2004-2006).
Within the US, Schroeder’s work has been performed by New York’s SEM Ensemble including a premiere performance at Paula Cooper Gallery, by the Flux Quartet (New York), Till By Turning (Chicago/New York), and other independent musicians including a duo show with composer-performer Aaron Siegel at the Chocolate Factory Theater in Queens.
Schroeder has been the recipient of numerous awards and commissions, including four grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, and others awarded by the British Columbia Arts Council, Wesleyan University, and the Banff Centre for the Arts.
2011