Portland-based composer-soprano-lyricist Carolyn Quick (she/her) “is establishing herself as one of the most important voices in our community (Makrokosmos Project 7: Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman).” As a singer-composer, Carolyn loves exploring the unique timbral and textural possibilities of the human voice. She also advocates for historically excluded music and co-founded new music collective Persisting Sound and music distribution collective Raindrop New Music. With performances across North America and Croatia, Carolyn’s commissions include Fear No Music, Eugene Opera, Vancouver Opera, and the Portland Phoenix Chamber Choir.
With performances across North America and Croatia, Carolyn’s commissions include Fear No Music, Eugene Opera, Vancouver Opera, and Voices of Concinnity. She has had works programmed for Vancouver Pro Musica’s Sonic Boom Festival, Art Song Lab, and participated as a composer-performer for Uzmah-Upbeat’s International Summer School in Croatia, and the Oregon Bach Festival Composer’s Symposium.
Most recently, Carolyn performed with Royal Voices of Charlotte during the International Choral Kathaumixw in Canada, singing her work Catch at Hope in their winning competition set! The work was commissioned by Portland Phoenix Chamber Choir, premiered alongside the Pacific Northwest premiere of Margaret Bond’s Credo, and will be featured on an upcoming album release by Centaur Records.
SINGER-FOCUSED BIO (200 WORDS)
Carolyn Quick (she/her) is a composer-vocalist-lyricist and multi-instrumentalist based in Portland, Oregon. Described as a “versatile young soprano” with a “pure timbre” and “haunting” voice (Opera News; Eugene Opera), Carolyn has performed in ensembles such as Eugene Opera, tackling the "hard-to-cast role of Miles" (Opera News), Portland Symphonic Choir, and the Oregon Bach Festival Vocal Fellows Program. Carolyn has also sung with Queer Opera, and Resonance ensemble - singing in the premiere of composer Damien Geter’s An African American Requiem. She toured with the award-winning University of Oregon Chamber Choir for choral competitions in Ireland, and Germany, and the Portland Phoenix Chamber Choir, travelling to the UK to compete in the Llangollen International Musical Eistedfodd.
As a soloist, she has performed Vivaldi’s Gloria with the South Puget Sound Community College Choirs, and with the Student Orchestras of Greater Olympia’s for their presentation of Handel’s Messiah. Carolyn has premiered over a dozen contemporary works across North America and Europe (with pieces by composers such as Andrea Reinkemeyer and Cary Boyce). Most recently, Carolyn performed with the Royal Voices of Charlotte, performing her commissioned work Catch at Hope as part of the winning competition set at the Kathaumixw International Choral festival.
WRITER-FOCUSED BIO (150 WORDS)
Composer-soprano-lyricist and multi-instrumentalist Carolyn Quick (she/her) has always loved for poetry and has been writing for well over a decade. As she began to pursue a career in music, poetry served a vital role in the raw expression of her life experiences, free of stress and constraint.
She has set several of her poems to music in works such as: Pieces, Not I Alone, Stop the Clock (which blends her words with quotations from the 2018 Kavanaugh Hearings Transcripts), and To Breathe which was selected for the Eugene Opera's call for scores: Songs for Quarantine. At Art Song Lab, Carolyn participated in several poetry workshops offered by Elee Kraljii Gardiner. Her works have also been set to music by composer Drew Swatosh's (they/them) in Dead Fires Anthology. She is published in the East County Poetry Group's East County Poetry: Lent 2019 - Epiphany 2020. For more information, visit: www.carolynquick.com.