BORN 11 MARCH
Professor and accomplished pianist Joyce Moorman teaches music classes in the Music and Art Department at BMCC.
Her areas of specialization within the field of music are composition and piano. Her compositions have been performed internationally and she has performed as an accompanist nationally with chamber and choral groups.
Professor Moorman also is a commissioned composer. Her "Tone Poem for Victims of Racism and Hatred" was recorded by Vienna Modern Masters and is available through Naxos. In 1997, she was appointed by the Governor of New York to the Advisory Music Panel for the New York State Council on the Arts, which she served on for three years.
According to Moorman, the course most related to music composition that she teaches is Introduction to Digital Music.
"Composers today rely on the computer, especially for the production of musical scores, the creation of new sounds, and the recording of improvisational or nonwritten music or sounds," she says. "I also presently teach BMCC's Basic Music class, which introduces students to music notation symbols and the building blocks of music, scales and chords."
She adds that she teaches piano at BMCC and "Facility at the piano is a tremendous asset to anyone seeking to pursue a career in music."
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JULIA GOMELSKAYA - UKRAINE
BORN 11 MARCH
A graduate of the Simpheropol Tchaikovsky Musical College where she studied piano and composition, Julia Gomelskaya further her studies at the Guildhall School of Music and the City University of London. She also participated in the Gaudeamus Foundation workshop for composers. Her teachers included Ton de Leeuw, Nigel Osborne, and Robert Saxton. Gomelskaya served as a professor of composition at the Odessa National Music Academy and was also a member of the National Ukrainian Composers' Union.
Gomelskaya was a prolific composer whose formidable catalog includes works for orchestra, chorus, and a wide array of chamber ensembles, including the viscerally exciting piano and percussion duo Gutsulka Dance from 2006. Her windband composition The Riot (2005) was performed during the 2011 World Music Days in Zagreb, Croatia. In the words of Anna Dorota Władyczka, “her compositions combine universal musical language with soul of Ukrainian tradition.”
Gomelskaya participated in international festivals in Ukraine and abroad including ISCM World Music Days (Zagreb 2011, Sweden 2009, Switzerland 2004, Hong Kong 2002, Luxembourg 2000), XXVI Festival "Trieste Prima" (Italy, 2012), Festival UNICUM in Ljubljana (Slovenia) 2012, 48 la Biennale di Venezia 2004, FMF Schweiz 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 (Switzerland), Spitalfields Festival 1996, 1997, Opera and Theatre Lab 1996 and Mayfield Festival 2000 (UK). Her music has been performed at Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room (London, 1998, 2001, 2002), "Gran Teatre del Liceu"(Barcelona, 2002). In 2008 her ballet "Jane Eyre" was staged by London Children's Ballet at the Peacock Theatre, London.
