Cultural Attaché – Forward into Light
ALBUM REVIEW
February 28, 2026
Craig L. Byrd from Cultural Attaché reviewed Sarah Kirkland Snider’s new studio album, Forward Into Light, on Nonesuch Records/New Amsterdam Records on his blog, New in Music This Week. Read more »
CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: FORWARD INTO LIGHT – Sarah Kirkland Snider – New Amsterdam/Nonesuch Records
I hope composer Snider is right. That, as Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Her music on Forward Into Light, with its title track centered around women’s rights, certainly strikes optimistic tones.
For those who think that contemporary classical music is atonal, lacking in melody and often structureless, I suggest you listen to this incredible album. Over the course of four works, the title track, Drink the Wild Ayre, Eye of Mnemosyne and Something for the Dark, Kirkland invites us into her music. She has composed music that stimulates, engages and moves us while being accessible without being facile.
Forward Into Light was first performed in 2022 at Carnegie Hall. Drink the Wild Ayre was commissioned for Emerson String Quartet. The eight-movement Eye of Mnemosyne was commissioned by the Rochester Philharmonic and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra commissioned Something for the Dark.
Since first receiving this album, I’ve listened to it half-a-dozen times. There’s always something new that I discover with each listen. And isn’t that what we want from music?
-Craig L. Byrd