Tanner Porter

ABOUT

BIOGRAPHY

Tanner Porter is a composer-performer, songwriter and visual artist from California. In her “original art songs that are by turns seductive and confessional” (Steve Smith, The New Yorker), Tanner’s passion for storytelling manifests in her setting of original poetry; her love for the cross-mingling of art forms often brings Tanner to incorporate her own artwork into scores and performances. “A voice that should be heard” (For Folk’s Sake), Tanner’s work has been performed on such programs as New Music Detroit’s Strange Beautiful Music 9, by Miami-based chamber orchestra Nu Deco Ensemble with conductor Jacomo Bairos, at the 2018 New Music Gathering, and at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall; recent orchestral works have been performed by the Albany Symphony with conductor David Alan Miller (commissioned for the 2019 American Music Festival and written in collaboration with librettist Vanessa Moody), by the Mannes American Composers ensemble with conductor Michael Repper, and by the Yale Philarmonia with conductor Julian Pellicano. Tanner was one of 14 composer commissioned for the 2020 opera Magdalene, which premiered on the Prototype Festival at the HERE Arts Center, featuring Danielle Birrittella with direction by Zoe Aja Moore. Upcoming projects include a work for the Miami-based chamber group Conduit, and a new orchestral piece for New York Youth Symphony (co-commissioned with Interlochen Center for the Arts as a part of their First Music program). Tanner is thrilled to have been named a recent recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Charles Ives Scholarship. She has attended the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, Avaloch Farm Music Institute, and Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and is thrilled to be attending the Aspen Music Festival this season. Her most recent album, The Summer Sinks, was recorded with LA-based studio Oak House Recording and can be heard on all streaming platforms. Tanner received a Bachelors in Music Composition from the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre and Dance, where she studied with Evan Chambers, Kristin Kuster, and Michael Daugherty. She received her Masters in Music Composition from the Yale School of Music, where she studied with Hannah Lash, Christopher Theofanidis, Aaron Jay Kernis and David Lang.