Karen Tanaka: Sleep Deeply

Karen Tanaka

Karen Tanaka was born in Tokyo in 1961. Her works have been performed by distinguished orchestras and ensembles including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France among many others. After studying composition at the Toho Gakuen School of Music, she moved to Paris in 1986 to study…

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Asta Hyvärinen: Star Child Arise/Star Child Aria

Asta Hyvärinen

Asta Hyvärinen (b. 1963) has described her composition style with the term “surrealist-cubism”. This means the structures are based on the surrealistic (subconscious) process and the sonic details appearance as cubistic. She uses also the term “whole tonality” which means equality of any kind of sounding material (chromatic; microtonal; noises & any kind of unpitched…

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Tara Valkonen: Farliga drömmar

Tara Valkonen

Tara Valkonen (b. 1999) started to play cello at the age of six, and soon she was imagining her future as a professional cellist – and a sculptor. But picking up the guitar at the age of 13 brought a change, as it was rock music now that became the main interest in her life…

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Iris Szeghy: Vielleicht, dass uns etwas aufginge

Iris Szeghy

Iris Szeghy (b. 1956) is a Slovak composer of Hungarian ancestry currently based in Switzerland. According to Slovak composer Peter Zagar, who wrote the entry for Szeghy in A Hundred Slovak Composers (Eds. Marián Jurík, Peter Zagar. Bratislava : National Music Centre Slovakia, 1998): “Szeghy’s work hitherto as a whole is remarkable for the quantity…

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Catharina Palmér: Strings in the air above

Catharina Palmér

Catharina Palmér (b. 1963) was born in Karlskrona, Sweden. She is educated in the fields of violin, piano and organ as well as composition, which she has studied at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, Sweden, and at Indiana University, USA. Palmér’s music has been performed by numerous ensembles inSweden and abroad. Recently, she…

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Deborah Cheetham: Eumeralla, a war requiem for peace

Deborah Cheetham

Deborah Cheetham AO (b. 1964), Yorta Yorta woman, soprano, composer and educator has been a leader and pioneer in the Australian arts landscape for more than 25 years. In the 2014 Queen’s Birthday Honours List, Cheetham was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), for ‘distinguished service to the performing arts as…

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Iryna Kyrylina: Zapalyu svichu

Iryna Kyrylina

Iryna Kyrylina (25 March 1953 – 4 September 2017) was a Ukrainian composer. She was born in Dresden, Germany, and studied with R.I. Vereschagin at the Kiev Musical College, and with M.V. Dremlyuga at the Kiev Conservatory, graduating in 1977. After completing her studies, she taught at a Kiev Music School and directed children’s choirs.…

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Joseph Davies: Hymn to Hermes

Joseph Davies (Photo by Kasia Wozniak)

Joseph Davies (born in Cardiff in 1987) has been hailed as “one of the brightest of rising stars” (Bernard Clarke, RTÉ) whose music, described as “extraordinarily vivid and exuberant” (Ivan Hewitt, BBC Radio 3) has been performed and broadcast throughout Europe and the USA. Commissions range from virtuosic chamber-size works for some of the most…

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Mari Sainio: The Raven

Mari Sainio, photo by Janica Lönn

Mari Sainio (b. 1989) is a Finnish composer who works in different types of classical music and movieprojects around the world. She combines classical music elements with cinematic melodies and electronic soundscapes with what could be termed a ‘post-rock pathos’. Sainio, a graduate of the Royal College of Music and the Sibelius Academy, has been…

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Victoria Polevá: No man is an Island

Victoria Poleva

Ukrainian composer Victoria Polevá (born 1962 in Kiev) has been stylistically identified with “sacred minimalism” whose most famous practitioners include Arvo Pärt, Peteris Vasks, John Tavener, and Henryk Gorecki since the late 1990s. An important period in Victoria Polevá’s creative work is related to intensive studies and embodiment of texts from divine services. The daughter of…

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