Photo by Josh Wool
Alaina Ferris is an interdisciplinary composer, poet, and performer who specializes in choral works, opera, and contemporary theater. Her music is described by The New York Times as “arrestingly lovely,” and “haunting.” As an active pianist and Celtic harpist, her music is inspired by a love of Renaissance chorales and her former work as a music therapist. She is one half of the indie-folk duo, Physical Kids, alongside Matt Schlatter.
She is the recipient of fellowships and grants from Hermitage Artist Residency, NYC Women’s Fund, New Music USA Creator Development Fund, Cité International des Arts residency in Paris, & The Norman Mailer Center; she was an artist-in-residence at The Movement Lab at Barnard College, a composer Fellow at The American Opera Project, a co-winner of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus Composer Competition, and a National Sawdust Summerlab Musician.
Her composing credits include: The Lydian Gale Parr, libretto by Karinne Keithley Syers, a poetic incantation with dance about a child emissary on an infinite quest to ask for an end to violence (co-produced by Amanda+James/The Tank, hosted by Target Margin Theater); Mia Rovegno and Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew’s adaptation of The Blind or Les aveugles, Maurice Maeterlinck’s symbolist play about 12 blind people lost on a forested island (HERE Arts Center); Joshua William Gelb’s adaptation of The Black Crook, the first American Musical (Abrons Arts Center); The Offending Gesture by Mac Wellman, a humorous indictment of American foreign policy in Iraq, told through the true story of Hitler and his dog, Blondi (The Connelly Theater); and Scott Adkin’s The Kioskers, which follows two young city dwellers as they escape urban life on a floating kiosk (St. Ann’s Warehouse Puppet Lab). Her work has also been presented at SoHo Rep, Barnard College/Columbia University; and she has collaborated with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, artists César Alvarez, Coco Karol, Sxip Shirey, Agnes Borinsky, Ellen Winter, Amanda Palmer, Timothy Stoddard, Jason Webley, Steve Earle, Anne Waldman, Eliza Bent, William Burke, Tyler Gilmore (Blank For.ms.), and more.
Her poetry chapbook, 'While Listening,' was released by The Operating System in 2016. Her manuscript, 'To Be Awake Means to Will' was a 2015 Finalist for the National Poetry Series and a 2018 Finalist for Fence Modern Poets.
She is the founder of The Music Room, a membership space (a guild!) for composers and music teachers who are dedicated to the art of practicing music, located in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
Alaina was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada and later moved to Boulder County, Colorado. She earned her B.A. in Music and Creative Writing from the University of Denver and her M.F.A. in Poetry from New York University. She lives in New York.