Kimberly R. Osberg (b. 1992) is a Portland-based composer from Eau Claire, Wisconsin who specializes in interdisciplinary collaboration. Her projects have included dance, film, environmental sound installations, instrumental theatre, plays, opera, visual art, award ceremonies, and stage combat. 

Her music has been described as “brilliant,” “highly-engaging,” “wonderfully suspenseful,” “intensely colorful,” and “wonderfully humorous and witty” and has received acclaim from academic, commercial, and public audiences alike. 

Her collaborations have been hailed as “ambitious” and “pioneering,” and have even inspired collaborators to launch annual opportunities for other composers (including the Exponential Ensemble’s Fordham Composers Program). Her work has been featured by Samsung as part of their featured VR experiences, and her 2020 Commissions from Quarantine project was a feature story in both the Dallas Morning News and WQOW News 18.

She is also a passionate educator, working closely with schools and individual composers and musicians across the country for over 12 years. With topics ranging from composition and orchestration, radical collaboration, and entrepreneurship and professional development, her work with students has been described as “transformational,” “deeply engaging,” and “unbelievably moving” by faculty and student participants alike.

Since moving to Portland, Oregon in 2020, Kimberly’s prolific output has exploded into a dynamic array of works, including collaborations with the Merian Ensemble, Resonance Ensemble, Calypsus Brass Quintet, the Beau Soir Ensemble, the Grand Circle New Music Ensemble, the Chaski duo, Whistling Hens, the New Mexico Contemporary Ensemble, the Bassless Trio, tuo duo, and SANS; duo—as well as school ensembles and countless individual musicians across the country—resulting in over 75 new musical works between 2020 and 2023.

Since 2021, her work has begun surfacing on albums across a dynamic array of musical ensembles—including flute quartet (Fowl Play), brass quintet (near death), solo piano (peace by piece), choir and strings (Seek What You Want to Find) and mixed chamber ensembles (Prometeo, Hops). In 2024 alone, Kimberly’s latest works will be featured on four new albums—including Kimberly’s work Just Another Climb, which will be released by the Merian Ensemble alongside new works by Jennifer Higdon, Clarice Assad, Leilehua Lanzilotti, Soon Hee Newbold, and Nicole Chamberlain—and produced by the legendary Elaine Martone.

She is also an active writer, creating original text for over a dozen musical works—including  a tone poem for projected text and chamber orchestra (Rocky Summer, Dallas Chamber Symphony) and an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” for her operetta, Thump (New Voices Opera)—as well as special contributions to publications like New Music Box.

Kimberly holds degrees from Luther College (BA) and the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music (MM). She has also attended several premiere festivals as a composition fellow, including the Brevard Music Festival, IRCAM’s ManiFeste, and the Aspen Music Festival. She was also a featured composer for the New Mexico Contemporary Ensemble’s Annual James Tenney Memorial Symposium, and has enjoyed performances from the National Flute Association conference, Grand Teton Music Festival, the Orford Festival in Canada, the Oh My Ears New Music Festival, the Madison New Music Festival, the Darkwater Music Festival, and the Women Composers Festival of Hartford.

She continues to live Portland, Oregon where she enjoys writing, hiking, watching movies with her partner Mauricio, and attempting to keep a few plants alive.

Learn more about Kimberly on her website here