Kitty Brazelton

Image of Kitty Brazelton
Faculty Emerita

Digital-chamber-punk bands, nine-piece rockestras, 21st century medieval quartets: Kitty Brazelton’s ability to create new genres as a composer, performer, singer, and instrumentalist is rooted in a study of even the most traditional forms of music.

Biography

Brazelton is a composer, performer, singer, improviser, multi-instrumentalist, and founder of the digital-chamber-punk band What Is It Like to Be a Bat? She has also founded the nine-piece rockestra Dadadah and the 21st-century medieval quartet Hildegurls, which performed its deconstruction of the music of 12th century Hildegard von Bingen with 21st-century technology at the 1998 Lincoln Center Festival in New York City. Her CD releases include What Is It Like to Be a Bat?, Kitty Brazelton: Chamber Music for the Inner Ear, Rise Up!, and Love Not Love Lust Not Lust. Her chamber music can be heard on CD in works for the Manhattan Brass Quintet and the California EAR Unit. Opera scores include Fireworks (with a libretto by Billy Aronson), presented outdoors in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park by American Opera Projects; Sleeping Out of Doors commissioned by Kristjan Jârvi for Absolute Ensemble’s orchestra at New York City’s Merkin Hall; and Animal Tales (with a libretto by the late George Plimpton), a new family opera incorporating a DJ, Latin percussion, a Baroque orchestra, and a multi-age choir.

Brazelton composed Time Remaining for Gina Gibney Dance, performed at St. Mark’s Danspace, Cleveland Public Theater, and The Duke on 42nd Street in New York. Brazelton has taught at Columbia, New York University, and as teaching artist for Lincoln Center Institute and BMI composer-in-residence at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. BA, Swarthmore College; MA, DMA, Columbia University. Brazelton is an artist-in-residence at Columbia University’s Computer Music Center and taught at Bennington from Fall 2001 through Fall 2022.