Corie Rose Soumah is a composer from Montreal and currently based in New York City.

Her works have been performed in Canada, the U.S, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy. Her musical interests lie in shattered sounds realms through collage and gestural practices. She explores sonic textures through acoustic mediums and electronic and analog technologies. Her approach is part of an active redefinition of a new québécitude brought under the influence of cultural, sonic and aesthetic multiplicities.

Winner of a SOCAN Foundation Award, Soumah works have been performed by an extensive number of ensembles and performers. Some of them include the guitar quartet Instruments of Happiness, string quartet Flux, Hypercube quartet, vocal sextet Ekmeles, Pierrot ensemble Paramirabo, percussion sextet Sixtrum, ensemble Contemporary Insight, New Music Concerts, Orkest de Ereprijs, Paramirabo and Wet Ink. Passionate about the encounter between music and other artistic forms, she contributed to several multidisciplinary projects with students from L’École supérieure de Ballet du Québec and students from the Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Montréal as well as the actor Yves Desgagnés. Her works have also been featured at the 24th Young Composer Meeting in the Netherlands, Italian soundSCAPE festival and highSCORE festival and the Domaine Forget at Charlevoix where she was composition fellow.

Soumah is currently pursuing a Doctoral degree in composition at Columbia University. Her teachers include Zosha Di Castri, Annie Gosfield, George Friedrich Haas, Marcos Balter and George Lewis. She completed a BMus degree in composition from the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal where she studied with Nicolas Gilbert, Jimmie Leblanc and Serge Provost. She has also worked with Chaya Czernowin, Trevor Grahl, Amy Beth Kirsten, Martijn Padding and Michel Tétreault.

Soumah is an associated composer at the Canadian Music Center.

Corie’s website: https://www.corierosesoumah.com/about/

“like a frog on the road to it,” for six amplified voices, tape, and live processing: https://youtu.be/rDfYs1htYKI?t=1990

“Spinning, Touched, Undreamt; Snow-,” for electric guitar, percussion, tenor sax, piano, and electronics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez2euTGGwNw&ab_channel=ScoreFollower

00:40 Acquiring other skills as a composer
03:55 Reacting to negative comments
7:00 Liking/disliking music
08:43 PIECE 1 Excerpt 1: “like a frog on the road to it”
10:54 Trusting your first idea
20:32 Manifesting identity
23:14 PIECE 1 Excerpt 2: “like a frog on the road to it”
25:14 Writing for the voice
28:38 Dawn Upshaw programed Saad’s vocal work
30:29 Begging as a composer
32:32 How do you know someone actually wants to work with you?
36:03 Do you have to compromise when writing for orchestra?
40:04 PIECE 2 Excerpt: “Spinning, Touched, Undreamt; Snow-”
42:14 Korean drama
45:44 Jazz and expectations from others
49:44 How to use Adobe Illustrator to create graphic scores
55:14 The problem with (the lack of) critical listening

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