Education
Festivals & Awards
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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" (Charles Rose, Oregon ArtsWatch) and "delicate and sensitive use of orchestration" (Sean Bickerton, Canadian Music Centre), Carolyn’s music has “a refreshing levity to its rhythms” (Rose). 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. Carolyn’s “pure timbre” (Opera News) lends itself well to both early and contemporary music. Carolyn has sung everything from Purcell, Handel, and Bach with period instruments, to Britten (most notably performing the role of Miles in Eugene Opera’s production of Turn of the Screw), Undine-Smith Moore, and over a dozen world premieres by composers such as Andrea Reinkemeyer and Damien Geter. She is an avid chorister and has sung with Cappella Romana, Portland Symphonic Choir and the Portland Phoenix Chamber Choir. As a soloist, Carolyn has performed with Eugene Opera, New Wave Opera, Queer Opera, and the Oregon Bach Festival’s Vocal Fellows Program, and was a guest soloist for orchestral concert works with South Puget Sound Community College Choirs, the Student Orchestras of Greater Olympia, and the University of British Columbia’s Choral Union. Carolyn recently competed in the NATS Student Auditions Under-30 Advanced Treble Category, qualifying for the National Competition Round. 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. |
Carolyn is currently a member of Portland-based chamber choir In Medio, Resonance Ensemble, Royal Voices of Charlotte, Portland Phoenix Chamber Choir, & Tabor Wind Ensemble.