150 Word Bio for Print and Press (2025)

Harriet Steinke is a composer from Detroit, Michigan. Her music has been commissioned and performed by chamber ensembles, orchestras, and soloists across the U.S.

Recent projects include her concert-length Mass for the Akropolis Reed Quintet, The Slow Movement for the Albany Symphony, her Marimba Concerto for marimba and orchestra for the percussionist Makana Medeiros, her ten-song cycle Hymnal for mezzo Molly Yuko McGuire (with text based on the poetry of Alessandra Lynch) — and her miniature opera Monna Innominata for Beth Morrison Projects (Dir. Nina Goodheart) which premiered at National Sawdust in May 2026.

From 2018-2020 she was composer-in-residence for the Detroit-based new music quartet Virago, who released their debut album of Steinke’s concert-length work Listening for Bells in 2022. Upcoming for the 2026-2028 seasons she will be composer-in-residence for the NYC-based chamber ensemble Sputter Box. Her music appears on records by CRUX Duo of pianist Lisa Moore and clarinetist Lloyd Van’t Hoff (My Place, ABC Classics, 2025), saxophonist Gary Paolo (New Stories, 2023), and upcoming releases by saxophonists Kyle Horch (Fantasia, Norwood Recordings, 2026), and Susan Fancher (Strange Lights, Neuma Records, 2026).

Harriet is the recipient of a 2023 Charles Ives scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has received composition fellowships at the Tanglewood, Aspen, and Norfolk summer festivals. 

She holds degrees in music and english from Butler University and two graduate degrees in music composition from the Yale School of Music. She has also has professional experience in non-profit and for-profit grant writing, artistic planning, operations, business development, and fundraising. She has taught musicianship, private composition lessons, and led composition workshops and masterclasses for K-12, undergraduate, and graduate level students. Her primary composition teachers are composers Michael Schelle, Martin Bresnick, Chris Theofanidis, Aaron Jay Kernis, and David Lang.

"Harriet Steinke has a beautiful ear. Her music lures me into a sonorous space of tender moodiness and a patient disquiet…Harriet is a rising star.”

—pianist Lisa Moore

“…This music is the antidote to those who say all new music is about struggle and strife, fearful of expression and especially of tenderness…Harriet Steinke knows how to control the flow and ebb of mass, to let sound surge and wane, in a way entirely of her own intuition.”

—composer Piers Hellawell

“…I find her music to be an excellent balance of being intellectually challenging and emotionally gratifying—always interesting, fun and never too far away from being in touch with beauty.”

—violinist Philip Setzer, Emerson String Quartet

“…Listening for Bells is nigh perfect, we suggest another team-up with Steinke. The composer has brought out the best in the quartet, highlighting their playful side, as well as their melodic…a bright, exuberant release, a rush of spring air in the midst of winter.”

—Richard Allen, A Closer Listen