Composer Kathryn Salfelder (b. 1987) engages late-Medieval and Renaissance polyphony in conversations with twenty-first-century techniques; she borrows both literally from chansons, motets and masses, as well as more liberally from Renaissance-era forms and structures.

Commissions have included new works for the Albany (New York) Symphony, Boston Musica Viva, United States Air Force Band – Washington, D.C., American Bandmasters Association, Chelsea Music Festival, New England Conservatory, Western Michigan University, Temple University, MIT, Japan Wind Ensemble Conductors Conference (JWECC) and the Frank Battisti 85th Birthday Project. Her music has been performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, saxophonist Timothy McAllister, conductor Ken-David Masur, and by more than 300 ensembles at the nation’s leading universities and conservatories.

She is the recipient of the ASCAP/CBDNA Frederick Fennell Prize, ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, Ithaca College Walter Beeler Memorial Composition Prize and the United States Air Force Colonel Arnold D. Gabriel Award. Three wind ensemble works — Cathedrals, Crossing Parallels and Reminiscence — are published by Boosey & Hawkes.

Salfelder maintains a small private studio where she teaches figured bass (à la Boulanger/Vidal) and composition lessons. Previously, she served on New England Conservatory’s composition faculty and as lecturer in music theory at MIT. In her spare time, she can be found realizing figured bass lines and dabbling at the organ.

Salfelder earned a Doctor of Musical Arts from New England Conservatory, a Master of Music from Yale School of Music and a Bachelor of Music from New England Conservatory. She has studied with Michael Gandolfi, Aaron Jay Kernis and David Lang.