Skip to page content

Bethany Younge

composer

About this Artist

“Bethany Younge’s works are often birthed from an extreme curiosity in sonic, physical, and interpersonal potential. As both a performer and composer, Younge’s oeuvre is uniquely aware of the potential that resides within the physiological dramaturgy of a work.” – Laura Cocks

“The music of Bethany Younge is raw. It deals with the body, the unique vocal expression and [the] physicality of Younge herself – questions of identity when as much conditioning is stripped away as possible and the bizarre theater that is born of all this. It is music that becomes desperately personal to the performer, as Younge composes with the essence of specific humans in mind. The brilliance of it all is its uroboric quality: In the end, Younge’s creations always circle back to be a representation of themselves.” – Nina Dante

Younge is currently pursuing her DMA in Music Composition at Columbia University in New York. She has received a Master’s degree in Music Composition from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and a Bachelor’s degree in Music Composition from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. She has studied composition closely with George Lewis, Zosha Di Castri, Richard Barrett, Martijn Padding, Yannis Kyriakides, Peter Adriaansz, Lewis Nielson, and Seung-Ah Oh.

Her works have been featured in the 2016 and 2018 International Summer Course for New Music Darmstadt, Resonant Bodies Festival, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, The 16th International Young Composers Meeting, and many other festivals. She has worked with ensembles including JACK Quartet, ASKO|Schönberg Ensemble, TILT Brass, KLANG, Ereprijs Orkestra, Fonema Consort, AndPlay, Chartreuse, Gyre Ensemble, Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble, Mocrep, and others throughout Europe and the USA. In 2016, she was awarded the Stipend Prize at the International Summer Course for New Music Darmstadt. Younge’s work has been mentioned in both The New York Times and The Chicago Reader, and has been listed in The New Yorker.