Sidney Corbett was born in Chicago in 1960, studied music and philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, and continued his study of composition at Yale University, where he earned his doctorate in 1989, and at the Hamburg Academy of the Arts with György Ligeti. Corbett has been active primarily in Europe since 1985. His output includes works for the stage, orchestral compositions, instrumental chamber music and a large amount of vocal music. His works have earned him numerous national and international awards and prizes and have been performed and broadcast worldwide.

A particular emphasis in his recent work has been in the area of music theatre. His chamber opera, X und Y, which was premiered at the Eclat Festival in Stuttgart in February 2002, the scenic work Paradiso, after Dante, for speaker and string quartet, which also premiered in 2002, in Basle, the large scale opera, Noach, after an original libretto by Christoph Hein, which ran very successfully in the 2001/2002 season at the Bremen Opera and his third opera, No Silence but that of the Wind, after texts by Fernando Pessoa, which premiered in the Concordia Theatre Bremen in January 2007 are all examples of this recent focus. His most recent opera, UBU, will premiere at the opera house in Gelsenkirchen in April 2012.

Another area of emphasis in Corbett’s work is vocal music. Cycles on poems by Christine Lavant, Barbara Köhler and Paul Klee are examples of this interest. His 3rd Symphony (Breathing the Water), for soprano, solo trumpet, solo contrabass and orchestra, commissioned by the Staatskapelle Berlin, employs poems by the late American poet Denise Levertov and the Iraqui poet Amal Al-Jubouri. Literary and theosophical subjects also inspire and inform his instrumental works. Yael, for solo violin and orchestra, draws upon the writings of Edmond Jabès. Rasch, commissioned by the Tonhalle in Düsseldorf employs texts by Roland Barthes. Corbett has also received commissions from the Berlin Philharmonic, MusikFabrik, West German Radio, Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart among many others.

Among his recent works are the orchestral piece Among the Lemmings, a large scale piano quintet, commissioned by the Utrecht String Quaret and his most recent opera, Ubu, which was commissioned by the Theater im Revier Gelsenkirchen and which will premiere in April 2012. He is currently at work on a piece commissioned by the Siemens Foundation for Ensemble Aventure.

CDs featuring Corbett's music have been released on CRI, Mode, Zeitklang, Ambitus, BIS and Kreuzberg labels. His opera Noach was released on Kreuzberg Records in 2004 and a solo CD, que hora es in paradiso?, featuring guitarist Seth Josel and the musikFabrik was released on Cybele Records in Spring 2006. His music is published by Edition Nova Vita, Berlin, and some earlier works were published by Ricordi, Bärenreiter and Verlag Neue Musik. Sidney Corbett is currently professor for composition at the University of the Performing Arts in Mannheim. Corbett currently resides with his wife and three children in Berlin, Germany.

“These are but a few of the impulses I find expressed in the music of Sidney Corbett. Nervous, assertive, rigorous, challenging, emotional music that reflects the man. Structurally complex, his music is technically polished yet neither pedantic nor obsessed with abstraction. Lyrically searching, it does not pander or strive for accessibility. It is music that states "I am". Sidney's music does honor to ist influences without mimicking them. Among these influences are his experiences as a rock and jazz guitarist and the impact of his formal study with Bernard Rands, Martin Bresnick, Jacob Druckman and Gyögy Ligeti: His extra-musical influences include his passion for baseball and football, his quest for spirituality, and a great love for discourse and debate. We live in a time of moral relativity and crass commercialism. In the "Age of Marketing" we desperately need people like Sidney Corbett - artists and thinkers who take chances to express their vision of truth, whether this vision is praised, scorned or ignored. Do you dare to listen?”

Arlo McKinnon, Brooklyn, 1998