Debra Kaye

New York composer Debra Kaye has honed her craft collaborating with musicians of Manhattan’s dynamic new music community. AND SO IT BEGINS, her debut album, is the result of this cross-pollination, with most of the music played by those who commissioned and premiered it. Music is movement – a concept from Kaye’s Dalcroze studies, these pieces have a visceral, visual quality, balancing pathos and humor, poetry and drama, taking the listener on a wide ranging journey that blends her deep classical roots with traces of jazz, world music, folk and pop. She has been described as “a unique voice in American music, transcendent…witty…colorful…profound.” Kaye’s music has been played at notable venues in New York City and beyond – uptown at Carnegie Hall, Steinway Hall, Mannes College, downtown at Bargemusic, DROM, and Spectrum, with radio play on Chicago’s WFMT and other regional stations. Career highlights include awards from ASCAP, Meet the Composer, Mannes College, Edward T. Cone Foundation, residencies at the Millay Colony and Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, and three OFF-OFF Broadway productions of The Ugly Duckling, with laudatory notice from the New York Times. A graduate of Mannes College of Music and New York University with degrees in composition and piano performance, Kaye rounded out her musicianship with jazz piano. A faculty member of the Mannes College Preparatory Division, she has served as executive director of the NY Composers Circle and president of the Howland Chamber Music Circle in Beacon NY. Debra wishes to express gratitude to her inspired teachers, Justin Blasdale, Anne Farber, Mike Longo, Ruth Schonthal, and the dedicated excellence of producer Judith Sherman, and the players on this album.