The work of composer ABBIE BETINIS (b. 1980) has been reviewed as “superb… whirling, soaring” (Tacoma News Tribune), and “audacious… edgy… thrilling” (Minneapolis Star Tribune). Praised for its melodic line and unfolding dramatic impulse, her music is also characterized by patterns of rhythmic vigor and playfulness.
Always an enthusiast of language, Betinis enjoys delving into ancient and modern texts in the hope of inspiring greater cultural literacy and exchange. She has set texts in English, Gaelic, ancient Greek, Latin, medieval Persian, Spanish, Tang-era Chinese, and gibberish (in which she is most fluent), and has recently completed a song cycle featuring the Norwegian poetry of Rolf Jacobsen. Her text setting has been called imaginative and sensitive, even while pushing performers to explore extended vocal techniques such as yodeling, crying, spitting, whistling, glottal grunting, or bird-calling. Her recent projects investigate topics as varied as ancient Greek love charms and binding spells, African melorhythm, early American shape-note singing, and Sufi mysticism. A recent piece for The Rose Ensemble explores the pre-Christian Gaelic tradition of keening in a staged piece for solo soprano, mixed chorus, Gaelic harp, bodhran, and vielle.
A 2009 McKnight Artist Fellow, Betinis has been commissioned by more than 40 music organizations including the American Suzuki Foundation, Cantus, Cornell University Chorus, Dale Warland Singers, Minnesota Music Educators Association, The Rose Ensemble, The Schubert Club, and the Young New Yorkers’ Chorus, and has won a Jerome Composers Commissioning Grant, the Esoterics’ Polyphonos Young Composer Prize, Craig and Janet Swan Composer Prize, and awards from the American Composers Forum, ASCAP, Minnesota Music Educators Association, and the Young New Yorkers Chorus. Her work is represented on six commercially-available recordings, and is published by Augsburg Fortress, Graphite Publishing, Kjos, Santa Barbara Music Publishing, and in G. Schirmer’s Dale Warland Series. In 2006, Betinis launched a self-publishing company, and now markets and distributes her own scores internationally.
Since 2001, Minnesota Public Radio has partnered with American Public Media to record and premiere Betinis’s annual, original Christmas carol (composed in the tradition of her great uncle Alfred Burt) to an estimated listening audience of 800,000. National Public Radio and Public Radio International have aired her performances by the Dale Warland Singers, Philadelphia Singers and The Rose Ensemble in national broadcasts.
Originally from Stevens Point, Wisconsin, Betinis holds a B.A. in music with a linguistics concentration from St. Olaf College, and M.A. in music composition from the University of Minnesota where her primary teacher was Judith Lang Zaimont. Upon twice receiving the Cynthia Lilley Scholarship from the European American Musical Alliance, she spent two summer sessions in Paris, France, where she studied harmony and counterpoint in the tradition of Nadia Boulanger with faculty from The Juilliard School and the Paris Conservatory.
Since 2005, Betinis has served as Composer-in-Residence for The Schubert Club in Minnesota. She has also held residencies with The Singers-Minnesota Choral Artists and The Rose Ensemble. A three-time cancer survivor, she lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
More information is available on her website at www.abbiebetinis.com.
Shorter Bio:
Reviewed as “most audacious… edgy and thrilling,” the music of Abbie Betinis (b. 1980) has been heard in some of the finest concert halls in the United States, and is enjoying growing acclaim abroad. Betinis has been commissioned by more than 40 music organizations including the American Suzuki Foundation, Cantus, Dale Warland Singers, and The Schubert Club. She holds degrees from St. Olaf College, the University of Minnesota, and has done post-graduate work at the European American Musical Alliance in Paris, France, where she studied harmony and counterpoint in the tradition of Nadia Boulanger. A McKnight Artist Fellow, Betinis has also received grants and awards from the American Composers Forum, ASCAP, the Jerome Foundation, and the Minnesota Music Educators Association. She has been Composer-in-Residence for The Schubert Club in Saint Paul since 2005, and has also held residencies with The Singers—Minnesota Choral Artists and The Rose Ensemble. A three-time cancer survivor, Abbie lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.