Testimonials

Working with Carolyn Quick was truly exceptional in every aspect. The piece she arranged was exciting for the singers, very singable, and ended up being a crowd favorite from the show. Above all, Carolyn is highly organized, communicates well, and worked hard to deliver a product that fit perfectly with our vision. We will definitely be working with her again in the future!
- John Eisemann (he/him), In Medio Choir
Soprano Carolyn Quick performed the role of Amelia in the West Coast Premiere of Serial Killers and the City with vibrant tone, glittering coloratura, and dramatic vocal colors. Her attention to detail in a contemporary score filled with meter changes and surprising harmonic shifts brought Del'Shawn Taylor's music to life with specificity and flair. Quick drew audiences in with her vibrant acting choices and natural physicality in the darkly comedic role of a fashionable surgeon turned serial killer
- New Wave Opera
Carolyn is a musical polyglot with an extensive background in singing new music, early music, and opera, enabling her to make eclectic and historically informed interpretive choices in her singing that really dug into unsettling and confronting emotions in [my work] Dead Fires...her excellent sight reading and wealth of experience as a vocal composer enabled her to be responsive to changes in the score and demonstrate different possibilities for her voice. Carolyn was a dream collaborator on this project!
- Drew Swatosh (they/them), Composer, Raindrop New Music

Education

  • MMus, Music Composition, University of British Columbia '18
  • BMus, Music Composition, University of Oregon '16

Vocal -
Festivals & Awards

Biography

With a “deft touch at crafting melodies and textures” (Charles Rose, Oregon ArtsWatch), Portland-based “local rockstar composer” (New Wave Opera) and soprano Carolyn Quick (she/her) writes “deeply meaningful,” music about our fundamental, shared human experiences, making a “huge impact on both singers and audiences” (Dr. Justin Smith) and "establishing herself as one of the most important voices in our community" (Makrokosmos Project 7). Her music utilizes a "delicate and sensitive use of orchestration" (Sean Bickerton, Canadian Music Centre) combined with “evocative text painting,” and “flowing modal melodies,” that results in music with “a refreshing levity to its rhythms” (Rose).

Recent commissions include the Portland Phoenix Chamber Choir, In Medio Chamber Choir, Fear No Music, Eugene Opera, and Queens University of Charlotte's Royal Voices, who featured two separately commissioned works in their winning competition sets at the XIX International Choral Kathaumixw and the 28th International Choir Competition of Preveza in Greece, the latter receiving a Special Jury Prize for Best Performance of a Contemporary Piece. Carolyn was also a finalist for the Stephen Paulus Emerging Composers Competition. 

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 composer collective Raindrop New Music to uplift those voices. 

Praised for her “vibrant tone, glittering coloratura, and dramatic vocal colors” (New Wave Opera), Carolyn dives headfirst into each performance, bringing attentiveness, creativity, and passion to solo and choral works alike. With a “pure timbre” (Opera News) that lends itself well to both early and modern music, Carolyn tackles works spanning Thomas Tomkins to Caroline Shaw with eagerness and vocal adaptability. With particular interest in contemporary performance and extended techniques, Carolyn has premiered dozens of new works by living composers including Andrea Reinkemeyer, Damien Geter, and many of her own.

Notable performances include playing the troubled Miles in Britten’s Turn of the Screw with Eugene Opera, doctor and murderess Amelia in the West Coast Premiere of contemporary composer Del’Shawn Taylor’s Serial Killers in the City with New Wave Opera, and a gender-bent casting of Des Grieux in Gounod’s Manon with Queer Opera. Carolyn was featured as both a composer and singer for the Oregon Bach Festival’s Vocal Fellows Program, coached by Roomful of Teeth’s Esteli Gomez, and was showcased as a guest soloist for concert works with Portland Symphonic Choir, University of British Columbia, University of Oregon, and the Student Orchestras of Greater Olympia. She was also a finalist for the NATS National Competition. 

She is an avid chorister and has sung with Cappella Romana, Portland Baroque Voices, Portland Symphonic Choir, Evenstar, Rose City Renaissance, and the Portland Phoenix Chamber Choir - who took her music to the Seghizzi International Choral Singing Competition and the XXXIV Festival Internazionale Di Musica Sacra in Italy.​ 

​Notable recent projects include collaborations with British Columbia based-poet JCCortens and Seattle-based actor, fight director, and writer Raya Tuffaha for the National Association of Teachers of Singing Composer Mentorship Program, culminating with the Cincinnati Song Initiative’s Let It Be New concert series, and the Seattle Opera Jane Lang Davis Creation Lab which fostered the creation and premiere of The Meeting House: a brand new 20 minute opera for treble voices and chamber ensemble. She was also recently commissioned by Dr. Sharon J. Paul and the University of Oregon Chamber Choir, which premiered her work, Joy at the Chamber Choir Alumni Event, celebrating 25 years with Dr. Sharon J. Paul. 
Carolyn in currently a member of Portland-based chamber choirs In Medio, Cappella Romana, Rose City Renaissance, Portland Baroque Voices, and Portland Phoenix Chamber Choir, as well as co-founder and member of composer-collective Raindrop New Music.