Kimberly Osberg
Kimberly R. Osberg (b. 1992) is a Portland-based composer from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Her projects have included dance, film, environmental sound installations, instrumental theatre, plays, opera, visual art, award ceremonies, and stage combat, in addition to traditional concert settings. 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. She currently serves as the inaugural Composer-in-Residence for Chatter PDX (2025-2027).
Kimberly has 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, International Double Reed Society, International Tuba Euphonium Association, National Saxophone Alliance, and International Women's Brass conferences, as well as the Grand Teton Music Festival, the Orford Festival, the Oh My Ears New Music Festival, the Madison New Music Festival, the Darkwater Music Festival, and the Women Composers Festival of Hartford.
While Kimberly is especially honored to have collaborated with musicians from the National Symphony, Dallas, Atlanta, Oregon, and Indianapolis orchestras, she is proud to write music for musicians at all stages of their careers - working with students from all over the country, she has enjoyed premieres and residencies with the Minnesota Music Educators Association All-State Orchestra, New Jersey Youth Symphony, Philadelphia All-City Band, University of Northern Iowa, Pittsburg State University, and more.
In recent years, Kimberly’s work has been included on albums by the Merian Ensemble, Resonance Ensemble, Calypsus Brass Ensemble, the Chamber Winds of South Dakota, and solo artists Elizabeth Robinson, Chris Opperman, Conrad Sclar, and Nicole Gillotti. She has also had her work featured on Performance Today, the most listened-to daily classical music radio program in the United States.
Outside of writing music, Kimberly is also a passionate creative placemaker. In 2019, she organized the Libera Composers Association Commissioning Consortium, in which six composers wrote grade 3 band works for low-income high schools. During the pandemic, she created multiple low-budget commissioning projects (Commissions from Quarantine, Project 12, Spring Forward, Key Notes, Neighbor Tones) that empowered over 60 soloists and chamber ensembles to commission substantial works—many for their first time. In 2024, she co-founded the New Wave Opera company in Portland alongside composer-mezzo Lisa Neher and soprano Lindsey Rae Johnson. Dedicated solely to the performances of vocal works by living composers, their first season facilitated the performance of over 40 living composers and librettists in their first season, including six fully-staged operas. In 2025, Kimberly started a free community resource for Portland-area composers to share news about current projects and upcoming performances, organize in-person meet-ups, and exchange feedback, ideas, information, and resources.
In the 2025-26 season, Kimberly is leading a project with Fear No Music and Chatter PDX to commission new string quartet works from 12 composers that will be presented with visual imagery and interweaving text reflections in support of forest conservation in the PNW. The season will also see premieres at the International Double Reed Society, National Flute Association, College Music Society, Minnesota Music Educators Association, and Georgia Music Educators Association In-Service conferences, a featured work on the New York Festival of Song, new works for Chatter ABQ and Chatter PDX, flutist Francesca Arnone, clarinetist Emily Mehigh, New Wave Opera artists Lisa Neher & Lindsey Rae Johnson, as well as new releases on albums by Calypsus Brass Ensemble (near death), Resonance Ensemble (Seek What You Want to Find), and the Chamber Winds of South Dakota (Passing Through).
Kimberly currently lives in Portland, Oregon where she enjoys writing, hiking, watching movies with her partner Mauricio, and attempting to keep a few plants alive.
