Soprano Anika Kildegaard is a champion of new music, having premiered and commissioned new works from composers including, among others, Libby Larsen, Ruby Fulton, and Nicholas Bentz. Her soprano/double bass duo LIGAMENT has premiered dozens of new pieces on concert series across the USA, most recently as the ensemble in residence for Washington DC’s District New Music Coalition. An album of new works written for her by French composer Jean-François Charles was released in late fall 2023. She has sung with such notable groups as The VocalEssence Ensemble Singers, the Minnesota Chorale, the SPCO Chorale, MPLS (imPulse), and is a core member of the Grammy award winning ensemble The Crossing. Recent solo appearances include Mozart’s Missa Brevis in F with Delaware Choral Arts and Osnat Netzer’s I won’t be outrun by a cavalry of snails with the University of Iowa’s Center for New Music.
Besides her performance work, Anika also composes new works for the voice. Her work is driven by the conviction that text is essential. Everything in a narrative signifies; it carries meaning, double-meaning, character, lessons, morals, immorals, jokes, and all the rest. Her compositional style (as in How to be Glamorous and Dontal) is built on a study of how language, when oversaturated, can become a shadow of itself: sweet becomes saccharine -- sensuality becomes manipulation -- monotony becomes transcendence -- safety becomes smothering.
Anika completed a BA from the University of Minnesota Morris in 2013, and an MA from the University of Iowa in 2020.
anikakildegaard at gmail dot com