Sophie Kastner is a composer and vocalist located in Montreal, QC. As a composer, Sophie is a storyteller first and foremost: her projects, ranging in subject matter from black holes to queer history, always tell a compelling narrative. In her current collaboration with NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory Science Center, she is working to translate telescope data into music that can be played by musicians. In the first stage of this process, her chamber piece, Where Parallel Lines Converge, based on a composite image of the galactic center, was recorded by Ensemble Éclat in June of 2022. She also recently composed a string quartet, Terminus, based on recordings of glacial ice melt for a commission by the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. The piece was premiered at the Jukebox: The Sound of Science concert series in April of 2024. 

 

In 2022, in collaboration with librettist and playwright Alice Abracen, she composed her first opera entitled All Things Lovely, based on the love letters exchanged between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West. In the Spring of 2022, several scenes were workshopped by Opera McGill as part of their Beta Lab new works initiative. She is currently working on a new collaboration with Alice: The Temptation of Eve, the story of Eve Adams, for which Alice received a Canada Council Research and Creation Grant. This November, Sophie was accepted into the Jewish Arts Mentorship program at the Segal Centre, a year long mentorship for emerging artists in the Montreal working on projects that engage with Jewish themes.

 

As an opera composer, Sophie’s mission is to tell stories of queer women and women who have been systemically erased from history. She seeks to make opera relevant to contemporary audiences, not only through the telling of new stories, but also through disrupting traditional opera tropes and bringing opera into non-traditional spaces. 

 

Sophie graduated from the McGill Schulich School of music in June 2022 with a Master’s in Music Composition, studying with Melissa Hui. Originally from New York State, she earned her Bachelor’s degree at Skidmore College in June 2019, where she studied composition with Evan Mack and voice with Sylvia Stoner-Hawkins. She has written works for voice, choir, chamber ensembles, piano, and orchestra.