Bio / Resume
Beth Custer is an Emmy Award winning, San Francisco based composer, performer, recording artist, bandleader, and the proprietor of BC Records. She has numerous recordings out with ensembles The Beth Custer Ensemble, Eighty Mile Beach, Clarinet Thing, Trance Mission and Club Foot Orchestra. She performs Bb, alto, bass, contrabass clarinets, flute, tenor sax, voice, piano, percussion, and toys.
Beth has composed for the contemporary chamber ensembles Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Zeitgeist, Earplay, Turtle Island and Kronos String Quartets; for the theatre productions of Campo Santo Theatre, Berkeley and San Diego Repertory Theatres, Magic Theatre, California Shakespeare, Overtone Industries, and Cornerstone Theatre; for the dance troupes AXIS Dance Company, Joe Goode Performance Group, ROCO Dance, Flyaway Productions, Ledoh, Harupin Ha, and Osseus Labyrinth; for the films of William Farley, Judith Ehrlich, Brad Coley, Cathy Lee Crane, Melinda Stone, George Spies, Koohan Paik, KQED’s Independent View and Deep Look, and for the silent films of Club Foot Orchestra including for a season of CBS/Film Roman’s Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat.
Beth created four musicals with writer Octavio Solis produced by Campo Santo Theatre and Overtone Industries. Her collaborative scores with inventor and MacArthur Fellow Trimpin led her to compose Vinculum Symphony, a site-specific, large-scale work that unites chamber musicians with experimental instrument builders.
Her numerous awards include artist residencies at Blue Mountain Center, Montalvo Arts Center, Civitella Ranieri Center, Headlands Center for the Arts, and Wild Acres. Other awards include a McKnight Fellowship in Minneapolis, University of Wyoming residency, Meet The Composer New Residency award, American Composers Forum Commissioning grants, San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artist grants, Zellerbach Family Fund awards, Gerbode award, Argosy Foundation recording grant, and an Aaron Copland Recording Fund award for her silent film score My Grandmother.
- Beth Custer Narrative Bio (pdf, 1 page)
- Beth Custer Short Bio (pdf, half page)
- Beth Custer Resume (pdf, 2 pages)
- Clarinet Thing Member Bios (pdf, 2 pages)
