WHO
Bethany Younge is a composer and performer whose work interrogates the physicality of music-making, merging acoustic and electronic sound with the visceral presence of the performer. Her pieces often employ instrumental deconstruction, motion-activated technologies, sounding costumes, and choreographed movement to amplify the body’s role in musical expression. Propulsive rhythms and uneven grooves collide with extended techniques, creating a tactile, kinetic sound world that teeters between control and abandon.
Currently Technical Director and Core Lecturer at Dartmouth College, Younge has been commissioned and performed by festivals worldwide, including National Sawdust (New Works Commission), Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Darmstadt International Summer Course, Resonant Bodies Festival, Long Beach Opera, and Frequency Festival. She has collaborated with ensembles such as JACK Quartet, TAK Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, ASKO|Schönberg, Fonema Consort, and Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble, among others across the U.S. and Europe.
Her awards include the American Academy of Arts and Letters Charles Ives Award, a Fromm Commission, the Kanter/Mivos Prize, the Barcelona Mixtur Commission, a Stipend Prize from Darmstadt, and the Dublin Sound Lab Commission, along with a Gaudeamus Award nomination.
Reactivated Anatomies (2025)
for 3 voices, automated costume-instruments, and analog synthesizer electronics
30’ WORKSHOP PERFORMANCE VERSION performed at Dartmouth College
Charlotte Mundy, Anaïs Maviel, and Charles Peoples III
Reactivated Anatomies explores themes of ecological collapse, posthumanist-cyborg futures, and atavistic re-imaginings. The piece has already undergone a workshop performance, revealing its core ideas while also highlighting the need for far greater expansion into a fully immersive experience. After years of composing 10-minute commissioned ensemble pieces, Reactivated Anatomies represents an opportunity to compose an evening-length work entirely of my own fruition, refined for years to come. The workshop iteration demonstrated the potential of the vocal and electronic interplay, with the performers’ extended techniques—ranging from chest-voice singing to guttural utterances—merging with synthesized textures to create a visceral soundworld.
BRIGHT VOID (2024)
EKMELES VOCAL ENSEMBLE + 3D PRINTED SIRENThis piece was made possible by a grant from the Fromm Music Foundation
In my search for the crude and coarse, Bright Void offers a pitched route. Veering from my more typical dabling with noise, bell-tone harmonies are instead filtered through chest vocalizations, microtones, and saw wave electronics. And(!) meandering through this semi-traditional harmonic language is the wailing siren, carving out an eerie melodic artery. Moving through time as anything does, the voices, electronics, and sirens exchange musical roles through blunt structural shifts. Composing this purely by ear, Bright Void inevitably leans heavily upon an accumulated listening while simultaneously subverting its very own foundation.
WATCH
BEYOND SPECIES (2024)
SEATTLE MODERN ORCHESTRA
All instrumentalists approach their instruments with a percussive sensibility, engaging in a mode reminiscent of childlike exploration, reaching back to imagined ancestral encounters with sound.
In this approach, the stringed instruments are not bound to the bow, nor do wind instruments necessarily rely on breath. Performers are encouraged to perform on secondary (or beater) instruments.
In contrast, a select few members of the spatialized ensemble engage in choreographed movements that activate a thin, long metal sheet with transducers attached. Functioning as capacitive touch sensors, the metal sheets play back samples from Memory Moog synthesizer when touched by the performer. As the performer manipulates the sheets, the quasi- Medieval music is filtered and spatialized. This mode of engagement is a reaching forwards to imagined futures of engagements with sound.
WATCH
UNDERGROWTH / POLKA (2023)
LUX:NM
Polka as disruption; polka as resistance; polka as unworlding. The electronics (samples taken from the MemoryMoog synthesizer) shape the raw instrumental sounds, guiding them from the chthonic undergrowth to a vibrant and evolving matter. As the music further materializes, it mutates its character several times before gaining momentum and driving towards willful collapse. In the rubble lies the undergrowth for another, perhaps improved, potential pulsating entity.
LISTEN
ALL OTHER WORKS
//ATAVIST I (2023)
for 3 performers + tapeIncludes a visual score, audio score, and video instructions
//ATAVIST II (2023) for 4 performers and electronics
Stardust as Body (2023) for clarinet, viola, cello, and doublebass + feet
composed for Michael Veltman ensemble
Organs of Another (2022) for percussionist with a body
composed for Jennifer Torrence
Proto-Maker (2022) for harpsichord and home-made percussion instrument
composed for Two Envelopes
You, Penumbra, Me (2022) for Chamber Ensemble + electronics
composed for Wild Up!
Feast of Selves (2021) for guitar, double bass, harpsichord, percussion + electronics
composed for Fonema Consort
To Touch is to Feel Oneself Being Touched (2020) for clarinet, violin, viola, cello, and electric guitar + electronics
composed for Distractfold Ensemble
I’ll Bleed Your Lines (2020) for Chamber Ensemble
composed for 113 Composers Collective
Thus We Dine (2020)for soprano, springboard, and oscillator
Limbs/Uttered/Spirits/Neglected/Flesh (2020) for clarinet, cello, and piano
composed for National Sawdust Ensemble
Feet to Roots, Eyes to Ears (2020) for soprano + electronics
composed for Nina Dante for the Longbeach Opera
I’M NOT MINE (2020)
self-produced album
At Midnight I walked into the Middle of the Desert (2019) for soprano, flute, bass clarinet, violin, and percussion + electronics
composed for TAK Ensemble
version for solo percussion
Where Waste Piles (2019) for soprano and violin
composed for Shepherdess Duo
I’d Like to Shed Your Skin Now (2019) for brass ensemble
composed for TILT Brass
Alamargo (2018) for soprano and electronics
composed for Nina Dante
Carving Our Wooden Bodies (2018) for string quartet
composed for Jack Quartet
Yappy Pace (2017) for two percussionists with voices and DIY machines
composed for Bonnie Whiting and Jennifer Torrence
NOBODY’S (2017) for two trombonists + foot keyboard
composed for RAGE THORMBONES
Oxygen and Reality (2017) for flute, balloons + electronics
composed for Laura Cocks
Ing ing ing ing ing ing ing ing ing ing ing into (2017) for violin and viola + electronics
composed for Andplay Duo
Crisscrossed with Corrections (2016) for accordion, saxophone, and percussion
composed for Gyre Ensemble
Bodyscape (2016) for soprano, bass flute, oboe, and percussion + no-input mixer and video
composed for Fonema Consort
Orbits (2016) for flute, bass clarinet, percussion + choreagraphed movement
composed for MOCREP
Electric Speak!Junk for me! (2016) for percussionist with a voice
Speech Factory (2015) for four human speakers
Her I Is She This (2015) for recorder, doublebass, percussion
composed for MOCREP
Her Dissappearance (2015) for two vocalists + PVC pipe
composed for Kayleigh Butcher and self
She Lapsed 12 Times into Feigned Lines (2015) for five movers
composed for MOCREP
Waters-water-waters (2015) for string trio
composed for Chartreuse Trio
Beyond Semiotics (2015) for flutist with a voice
Concrete (2015) for pianist with a voice
Doublespeak (2015) for soprano, clarinet, and percussion
SCORES AND MATERIALS CAN BE PURCHASED DIRECTLY FROM COMPOSER
OR FROM BABELSCORES