Kathryn Salfelder (b. 1987) is fast gaining international recognition as a rising young composer. Recent awards include the ASCAP/CBDNA Frederick Fennell Prize, Ithaca College Walter Beeler Memorial Composition Prize, US Air Force Colonel Arnald D. Gabriel Award, Japanese Society of Boston Toru Takemitsu Award, and an Encore Grant from the American Composers Forum. Her works for wind ensemble, Cathedrals and Crossing Parallels, are published by Boosey & Hawkes and have been featured in over one hundred twenty performances, including concerts in the United States, Paris, Stockholm, Singapore, Taiwan, Canada, and Japan.

Her soprano saxophone concerto, Lux Perpetua, was premiered by Timothy McAllister and the Albany Symphony in October 2011. Her prior orchestral work, Dessin No. 1, was premiered in Boston by the New England Philharmonic as winner of their 2009-2010 Call for Scores, and subsequently performed by the Minnesota Orchestra on their Future Classics! series, in conjunction with the Ninth Annual Composer Institute. Current projects include a new work for the United States Air Force Band (Washington DC), and a new choral cycle featuring the poetry of Boston-based healer and writer Tom Tam.

An accomplished performer, Ms. Salfelder has served as resident associate conductor and rehearsal pianist for the Fiddlehead Theatre Company (Norwood, Massachusetts) and pianist for the New England Conservatory Wind Ensemble and Jordan Winds. She has also appeared on New England Conservatory’s Composer’s Series, Tuesday Night New Music and Chamber Music concerts, and was twice featured as soloist with the North Jersey Symphony Orchestra.

Her writings on the compositional process appear in Composers on Composing for Band, Vol. 4 (GIA, 2009), and a complete analysis of Cathedrals is included in Teaching Music through Performance in Band, Vol. 8 (GIA, 2011). Recordings are available on GIA WindWorks, featuring the North Texas Wind Symphony.

Ms. Salfelder earned a BM in Composition with Academic Honors from New England Conservatory, where she studied with Michael Gandolfi. At NEC Commencement, she was awarded the 2009 Donald Martino Award for Excellence in Composition and the 2009 George Chadwick Medal, NEC’s highest undergraduate honor. She is currently studying with David Lang and Aaron Jay Kernis, pursuing a MM in Composition at the Yale School of Music.