11 NOVEMBER 2019

JANA SKARECKY - CZECHIA

BORN 11 NOVEMBER

Jana Skarecky was born in Prague, in the Czech Republic, on November 11, 1957. She emigrated to Canada with her family in 1968.

She holds a Bachelor of Music degree (Honours Composition) from Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo, Ontario), where she studied composition with Barrie Cabena, and a Master of Music in composition from the University of Sydney, Australia, where she studied with Peter Sculthorpe. She has an ARCT in piano performance, having studied piano with Erhard Schlenker.

Ms. Skarecky's compositions cover a wide spectrum of instrumental and vocal resources, and have been performed in Canada, USA, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. Her orchestral work Streams opened Hammerson Hall of the Living Arts Centre in Mississauga. Green and Gold for soprano and piano (text by P.K. Page) was commissioned for the Wider Boundaries of Daring poetry conference (Windsor) and the choral work Song of Life was commissioned for Then, Now, & Beyond... a Festival of Music by Women (Ottawa). Her opera Emily, the Way You Are continues to be enthusiastically received by audiences.

Jana Skarecky has been Chair of the Association of Canadian Women Composers, and a member of the National Council of the Canadian League of Composers. She is also active as a visual artist. She teaches piano and theory at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, and in Mississauga and Hamilton. She is the translator of The Foundations of Modern Harmony by Karel Janeček from Czech into English.

Source: Music Centre Canada and Jane Skarecky Official Website

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From Fear to Courage by Jana Skarecky

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EWA TREBACZ - UK
BORN 11 NOVEMBER

Ewa Trebacz is a Polish-American composer living in Seattle. Her works range from purely instrumental solo, chamber, and symphonic compositions, to compositions with computer realized sound with live performance, to sound tracks for animated films, to experimental stereoscopic video.

Her current artistic explorations are oriented towards immersive media. She often uses space as a catalyst for improvisation, working through Ambisonic recording sessions in acoustically inspiring spaces.

Ewa comes from Kraków, Poland, where she studied music from an early age. She earned her first music degree - a title of "musician-instrumentalist" in violin performance - from the M. Karłowicz School of Music in Kraków. She continued her music education at one of Poland's best conservatories, the Academy of Music in Kraków, where she studied composition under renowned composer, musicologist and teacher Bogusław Schaeffer, graduating with a Master's degree in 1999. In 2004 she became one of the first doctoral students at the University of Washington Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS), where she studied computer music with Richard Karpen and Juan Pampin. She graduated in 2010 with a Ph.D. with her audiovisual immersive work Errai. Currently Ewa works at DXARTS as a Research Scientist.

Source: Ewa Trebacz Official Website and Dxarts

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Sequence by Ewa Trebacz

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11 OCTOBER 2019

DIANE WITTRY - USA

BORN 11 OCTOBER

Diane Wittry is an American musical conductor and composer, named by Musical America as one of the “30 Top Music Professionals 2015.” She is currently the Music Director and Conductor of both the Allentown Symphony Orchestra in Pennsylvania (since 1995), and the Music Director and Conductor of the Garden State Philharmonic in New Jersey (since 2018). The GSP is an orchestra of New York and New Jersey based professional musicians that perform concerts at the Jersey Shore. Additionally, Wittry has been the Artistic Director for the International Cultural Exchange Program with the Sarajevo Philharmonic in Bosnia. From 2001-2010 Wittry served nine seasons as Artistic Director and Conductor of the Norwalk Symphony in Connecticut.

Wittry is a graduate of the University of Southern California (USC) with a degree in violin and a master's degree in conducting. In 2013, Wittry was named the “Outstanding Alumnus of the Thornton School of Music” at USC. Wittry studied conducting with Daniel Lewis, and worked closely with Michael Tilson Thomas, Sir Maxwell Davies, Gustav Meier, Leonid Korchmar, and Jorge Mester.

Diane Wittry has conducted concerts all over the world, including in Japan, Canada, Bosnia, Russia, Slovakia, New York, Washington D.C, Connecticut, Wisconsin, and California, as well as her regularly scheduled concerts with the orchestras in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where she places special emphasis on “connecting her ensembles with their communities.” She is known as a conductor who “specializes in finding creative ways to make the music fresh, accessible, and exciting.”

Source: Wikipedia & Diane Wittry Official Website

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After the rain by Diane Wittry

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ASPASIA NASOPOULOU - GREECE
BORN 11 OCTOBER

Aspasia Nasopoulou (Athens, 1972) is composer, pianist, and curator and is living in Amsterdam.Her work has a poetic, evocative and dynamic transparency. It is inspired by literature, mythology and philosophy from different cultures. In her over more than eighty compositions she is frequently exploring the synergy between music and theater by integrating new instruments, visuals and dance. Her pieces have been commissioned and are performed regularly by acclaimed soloists and ensembles internationally.

Nasopoulou's classical background gives to her work a profound and dynamic contemporary expressiveness. A large number of her pieces are inspired by poetry from a variety of writers and  from past and present times. By working with these texts she creates the concepts for her musical forms of which many are theatre oriented.

Since 2016 she is organizing the residency for composers, Composer’s Treat under the Cultureland foundation. Together with the bass clarinettist Fie Schouten is curating since 2019 in Plein Theater, the new concert series for contemporary chamber music Nieuwe Noten Amsterdam. Her works are published by Donemus.

Source: Geelvink and Aspasia Nasopoulou Official Website

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Nanourisma by Aspasia Nasopoulou

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