My inspiration: I’m inspired by classical music and opera, folk music, jazz, pop, and indie-rock. Some of my favorite artists are Nina Simone, Björk, Renée Fleming, Alice Coltrane, Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky.

Education: B.A. Bard College Composition and Voice; M.M. Yale School of Music in Composition

I play and teach: Piano, Voice, Songwriting/Composition

Personal Teaching Statement: My teaching style is exploratory and individualized. In my classes and private lessons music is fun, spontaneous, open and creative. I teach songwriting and voice at BKCM. In songwriting I focus on creativity, imagination and performance – while learning lyric writing, composing melodies and arrangements. My goal is to help students achieve their goals, support them in their ideas, and help them grow in confidence.

In voice lessons I work on healthy habits, breath work, building your vocal instrument through exercises and technique, musicality, song interpretation, basic music theory and note reading.

Like my first piano teacher always said to me, “You will always have your music.” Whether you’re new to songwriting and singing or already experienced – learning and exploring music stays with you throughout life and so do the tools we learn in the process.

Biography: Gabrielle Herbst is a composer, songwriter, vocalist, and educator.

She’s received commissions from Roulette and the Jerome Foundation, the Nouveau Classical Project, Duo Noir, Experiments in Opera, Fresh Squeezed Opera, The Knights, and contributed to the opera Magdalene as part the Prototype Festival 2020 in NYC. She’s been composer-in-residence at the Watermill Center, Exploring the Metropolis, Inc., Atlantic Center for the Arts, Avaloch Farms, Roulette, and Pioneer Works. She has had her compositions presented at venues including National Sawdust, The Stone, Issue Project Room, HERE Arts Center, the National Guitar Society, MATA, and Lincoln Center Atrium.

She released her debut album of songs, Sympathy, on Software Recording Co. in 2015 under the moniker GABI and toured extensively in both Europe and the U.S. Tour highlights included David Byrne’s Meltdown Festival, London, Pop Kultur Festival, Berlin, Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam, The Great Escape, Brighton UK, Marfa Myths Festival TX, The Wick presented by Pitchfork, and a series at Roulette with Missy Mazzoli curated by Meredith Monk. She released her sophomore album, Empty Me, on label Double Double Whammy in 2018.

Besides being a singer of her own music, she was a vocalist in Valgeir Sigurðsson’s music-theater piece, Wide Slumber (2014); in Missy Mazzoli’s ensemble for a performance at Roulette (2016); for Contemporaneous Ensemble (2012); in recordings for the music of Elliot Sharp and Zeena Parkins (2011); and for the music of composers Frances Pollack and Aaron Levin (2019).

She is a current fellow with the American Opera Project’s Composers & the Voice program. She received her B.A. at Bard College where she studied composition with Joan Tower and voice with Ilka Lomonaco. She received her M.M. in Composition from the Yale School of Music where she studied with Martin Bresnick, Aaron Jay Kernis, and David Lang.

As an educator she’s taught in NYC for The Kaufman Center’s Face the Music program and Special Music School, as a Teaching Artist Associate for the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers Program, as a songwriting, voice and piano teacher at the Queens Music Academy, as a Teaching Fellow at Yale University, a composition mentor for new music organization MATA Jr., and as a teaching artist at the Yale School of Music’s Music in Schools Initiative – teaching composition and songwriting lessons to middle and high school New Haven Public School students.