https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/Amy-Beth-Kirsten-is-finally-convinced-that-she-s-11599877.php
Amy Beth Kirsten is finally convinced that she's a composer (video) Donna Doherty, Register Arts Editor Published 12:00 am, Sunday, July 11, 2010
New Haven composer Amy Beth Kirsten is off to her second summer music festival. (Contributed)
NEW HAVEN -- Amy Beth Kirsten says she was a late bloomer when it came to her chosen career, but it seems the New Haven composer is making up for it in quick order. "The idea of becoming a composer really snuck up on me," she says, though she'd been singing and writing songs nearly her whole life, and made a living with it as a Chicago pop singer/songwriter for a decade starting in the early 1990s. Today, she's heading to Columbia, Mo., for the inaugural Mizzou New Music Summer Festival, which takes place Monday through July 18 -- one of eight composers selected from more than 120 applicants from the People's Republic of China, France, Spain, Turkey, Korea, Mexico and the U.S. "The summer festival circuit didn't really occur to me because I'm kind of older (37). I didn't have my first composition lesson until I was 30."