Anne Kilstofte

Arizona composer Dr. Anne Kilstofte (Kilz-tofft) spent her early winters in Minnesota amid her mother’s paint tubes and pastels, but her father’s influence also played a role by sharing his recordings, introducing her to a wealth of composers including Shostakovich, Grieg, Beethoven, Saint-Saëns, Brahms, Dvorak, Schubert, and even Big Band to name just a few. This early introduction is her earliest memory of a world where she was encouraged to create and use her imagination. Her use of color and lyricism and her adeptness at writing for voice may stem from this. Critics often mention her writing using “exceptional variety of tone color, conjuring landscapes that are sometimes misty, sometimes luminous, always atmospheric…” (International Alliance for Women in Music).

She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in Music Composition and Theory, where she studied with Dominick Argento and privately with Libby Larsen, a Master’s Degree in Music Composition, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Music and Media, focusing on audio recording/synthesis, piano, and music business from the University of Colorado. She is often commissioned by international ensembles and soloists for orchestral, operatic, chamber, string quartet, choral, pipe organ, hand bell, and vocal works.

Kilstofte was named a year-long Fulbright Senior Scholar (“Senior” denotes distinction in one’s field) to Tallinn, Estonia at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, where she taught composition, composed three large works including two for pipe organ, and a work for orchestra and choir, researched the music of pre and post-communist influences of Estonian music, and lectured on the music of Estonian composer Eduard Tubin as well as Music of the Northlands of the United States. 

Honors and grants that Kilstofte has received include those from the American Composers Forum, ASCAP, The Jerome Foundation, The Bush Artist Fellowship, twice from The McKnight Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board, as well as the Arizona Humanities, and the Arizona Commission on the Arts. She has received two awards from The American Prize, including a Judges’ Citation for Unique Artistic Excellence and another for Best Recording, and the Miriam Gideon Award, through the Search for New Music, from the International Alliance for Women in Music. 

She was an assistant professor and composer-in-residence at Hamline University in St. Paul for 12 years, and taught at the University of Minnesota, the University of Colorado, Gustavus Adolphus College, and guest-lectured at Oldenburg University (Germany), and The Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm, Sweden. She currently teaches piano, composition, and musicology at the college level in Glendale AZ. She is a special needs advocate and volunteers at the Silver Spur Therapeutic Riding Center for children and young adults.