Whereas some composers emerge on the music scene as if at a stroke, others, such as Arlene Sierra, come to prominence more gradually as the result not of any specific piece but through their building of a corpus of work whose intrinsic quality is as evident as is its sheer consistency of purpose. She was born in Miami to parents from New York, then lived in Berlin before relocating to London. Since 2004 she has taught composition at Cardiff University.

Sierra's compositional voice puts the varied components of her music, drawn from both sides of the Atlantic, to distinctive and individual use. She worked primarily with electronic media in her early output, though her catalogue now encompasses almost all the principal musical genres.

What is now her earliest acknowledged work, the Cello Duo (1993), already denotes an unforced while resourceful take on aspects of European modernism. This is duly intensified by the virtuoso workout that is Of Risk and Memory (1997), with its choreographic interplay between two pianos and tendency to interrogate its main ideas almost to a point of obliteration, so that their longer-term transformation becomes the more concrete. Even more impressive is Truel (which exists in versions for piano trio, 2004; and clarinet trio, 2007), its three substantial movements enacting a three-way process akin to elimination, affording new vitality to the fast-slow-fast format - not least through endowing the instruments with distinct if never inflexible personas that evolve experientially as well as motivically. Rarely can the precepts of game theory have been so meaningfully expressed.

The influence of one of Sierra's principal teachers, Jacob Druckman, is audibly apparent through the pristine clarity of her musical textures, in rhythms that ensure supple forward movement without claiming undue prominence, and in harmonies whose poise is never at the expense of more visceral qualities. The influence of Berio is evident in the tendency for works to fall into self-contained groups whose interconnections are as much conceptual as musical, hence the diverse and ingenious ways that ideas are resumed in pieces whose only outward similarity is one of title or scoring.

'Colmena' evokes the sound of swarming bees as a rbythmic device that underpins music whose overall motivic transformation is of the greatest finesse

A notable such group is a series of pieces exploring principles of military strategy, including Ballistae (written for ensemble in 2000 then revised for orchestra a year later), which outlines the preparation and launching of a Roman weapon called the ballista in music whose allotment of strategic roles to subgroups of players or individual ensemble members is galvanised by energetic impetus. The sextet Surrounded Ground (2008) draws on an ancient Chinese treatise concerning military strategy for its movement titles and the formal trajectory of each section, which proceeds from intended antagonism to determined escape via purposeful separation. The septet Cicada Shell (2006) also belongs to this series, the two movements juxtaposing methodical dissipation of activity and its more spontaneous accumulation in a process of transformation and illusion, a process that culminates in the piano concerto Art of War (2010). Here the groundplan of capture and release, resourcefully portrayed across two movements of equal length and weight, offers definite renewal of that too often hackneyed relationship between soloist and orchestra as well as of the concerto as a genre capable of meaningful virtuosity.

Different in conception while not unrelated in intent, a further group of pieces focuses on salient qualities of evolution and natural selection. The first book of Birds and Insects (2003-07) is a sequence (or not, if the pianist chooses) at once imaginative and diverse - each of its first four pieces an evocative miniature, with the closing 'Scarab' (2003) a rondo whose relative length is galvanised by its scintillating toccata-like figuration. Sierra has followed this with two more such books (2018 and 2023), which both introduce an (optional) element of recorded birdsong to the already potent mix. Colmena (2008), for 14 players, evokes the sound of swarming bees as a rhythmic device that underpins music whose overall motivic transformation is of the greatest finesse.

Butterflies Remember a Mountain (2013) charts the knowing course of migration via deft interaction between violin, cello and piano - a process similar to that in Avian Mirrors (also evoke the behavioural pattern takes this further by bringing sampled birdsong and its (played on three pianos and meaningful accord.

Vocal music is not absent from Sierra's output. The substantial song-cycle Neruda Settings (2002-05), for soprano and chamber ensemble four, sets (in Spanish) four of the Chilean poet's Elemental Odes to music whose intricate conjuring of the visionary out of the mundane mirrors the verse that inspired it. Meanwhile, Two Neruda Odes (2004), taken from Neruda Settings and rescored for smaller forces (soprano, cello and piano), realises its emotional extent in terms immediate and affecting. Other vocal works differ widely in terms of text sources, ranging from the work of graduates on the creative writing course at the University of Michingan in the soprano-and-piano work Three Desctiptions (1997), to the environmental poetry of Catherine Carter in in Hearing Things (2008), also for soprano and piano. One might also mention the 'song without words' Counting-Out Rhyme (2002), the eponymous poem from Edna St Vincent Millay being deftly while resourcefully reconfigured as a capricious dialogue for cello and piano.

Work for the stage is represented by Dalia (2013), the second part of Cuatro corridos, a four-scene collective chamber opera (with Lei Liang, Hilda Paredes and Hebert Vázquez) with text by Jorge Volpi which places a soprano in the striking context of guitar, piano and percussion; and Faustine (2011-), a one-act opera for six voices and orchestra with libretto by Lucy Thurber after the provocative novella by Emma Tennant and still in progress (though two striking excerpts can be heard via Sierra's website). Equally significant is the sequence of small-ensemble scores for 1940s films by innovative Ukrainian-born American director Maya Deren - Meditation on Violence (2012), Ritual in Transfigured Time (2016) and Studies in Choreograpby (2019) - which unerringly convey the balletic grace and seductive danger of the cinematic imagery while functioning effectively as stand-alone works.

Across Sierra's output comes a series of orchestral scores. Aquilo (2001) is a lively depiction of the north-east wind and a multilayered showcase for the Tokyo PO; Game of Attrition (2009) evokes Darwinian theory in music confrontational yet methodical that put the New York Philharmonic through its collective paces; while Moler (2012) for the Seattle Symphony alludes to that city's grunge scene with its 'teeth-grinding' but engaging energy. Symphonic concepts have latterly come to the fore in Nature Symphony (2017) for the BBC Philharmonic, its three movements centred on suspenseful 'The Black Place' after Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings of New Mexico, then Bird Symphony (2021) for the Utah Symphony, whose four movements unfold towards the scintillating culmination of its final 'Utahraptor'. Kiskadee (2023) for the Detroit SO is a further study in sheer avian effervescence.

Many of Sierra's works are available commercially on the Bridge label, with more set to come, while several individual pieces are obtainable as part of performer anthologies. It is notable that though she has lived in the UK for over two decades, performances of her music take place mainly in the US and several major works await their British premieres. Sierra is a composer of consistent individuality and substance: one, moreover, who is in absolute control of her craft while remaining true to her stated musical philosophy - 'Write what you want to hear; don't bother second-guessing what anyone else wants to hear.'

This article originally appeared in the February 2024 issue of Gramophone. Never miss an issue – subscribe today!