150 Word Bio for Print and Press (2025)

Harriet Steinke is a composer of concert music. She has been commissioned by chamber ensembles, orchestras, and soloists across the U.S and some of her favorite premieres have been in her hometown city of Detroit.

From 2018-2020 she was composer-in-residence for the Detroit-based new music quartet Virago. In 2022, they released their debut album of Steinke’s concert-length work Listening for Bells, where the quartet was joined by pianist Michael Malis and bass clarinetist Dominic Bierenga. This sextet premiered the full work at Trinosophes in 2022 and later at Detroit’s annual Strange Beautiful Music festival. 

Several of her works have also premiered at the Detroit Institute of Arts’ Friday Night Live series, including her piece Let Everything Ring for six grand pianos, which was premiered by the NYC-based piano sextet Grand Band in the DIA’s iconic Diego Rivera courtyard in 2018. In 2024, the Australian piano-clarinet duo CRUX, made of pianist Lisa Moore and clarinetist Lloyd Van’t Hoff, gave the Detroit premiere of her piece Rituals at the DIA as part of the performance tour for their debut record. Steinke’s five movement work appears on their new album My Place which was released by ABC Classic in January 2025.

Upcoming, Steinke is working with the newly GRAMMY-awarded Akropolis Reed Quintet on a full length instrumental Mass, which will be premiered in summer 2025. Also this year, she was named one finalists for the Beth Morrison Projects NextGen program and will present a newly commissioned one act vocal theatre work at National Sawdust in New York City in 2026, produced by BMP.

She has been recognized by a Charles Ives scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2023) and has received composer fellowships from 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 worked as a professional grant writer, artistic operations coordinator, and business development manager and fundraiser for several arts and non-arts organizations. Her primary composition teachers include 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