Kasia Glowicka | |
|---|---|
 Glowicka in 2020 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Katarzyna Glowicka |
| Born | 1977 (age 47–48) |
| Origin | Poland |
| Genres | Experimental,minimalism,art music |
| Occupation | Composer |
Kasia Glowicka (born Katarzyna Głowicka, October 12, 1977), also known asKatarina Glowicka, is a Polish composer and lecturer ofcomputer music at theRoyal Conservatory of Brussels.[1]
Her body of musical work encompasses compositions for opera, theater, ballet and film.[2] As aplaywright, she focuses her work on current social issues.[3]
As a composer, her work spans a range of styles inexperimental,minimalism,Avant-garde,art music andcontemporary classical music genres, written for orchestra, small ensembles, or solos and often accompanied byelectronic music.
In 2004 she married composerHenry Vega and they reside in the Netherlands.[4] They are founding directors of the Artek Foundation and its recording label, ARTEKsounds.
Glowicka's collaborations include works with the Dutch symphony orchestraHet Balletorkest, an affiliate ofHet Nationale Ballet, plusEnsemble Recherche[5] andTies Mellema.[6] Her scores are published by the Dutch instituteDonemus.[7]
Glowicka was born inOleśnica. She graduated from theAcademy of Music in Wrocław in 2001 after studying with the composerGrażyna Pstrokońska-Nawratil. During 2000 she held an internship with Italian composerIvan Fedele at the Conservatory inStrasbourg and later studied with Dutch composers,Louis Andriessen andMartijn Padding at theRoyal Conservatory of The Hague, of which she is also a graduate.[8] She also completed a PhD focusing oncomputer music at the Sonic Arts Research Centre at theQueen's University Belfast in 2008.[9]
As early as 1999, Glowicka's pieceGindry for bass and string orchestra won theAdam Didur All-Polish Composition Competition. In 2001, at just 23 years old, Glowicka was short-listed along withlibrettist Jerzy Lukosz for the Genesis Prize, from the London-based Genesis Foundation for their OperaThe King's Gravedigger and an act from the piece was performed at theAlmeida Theatre.[10]
She has also been recognized by theHolland Symfonia Competition and won awards from theEuropean Commission, the International Biennale of Modern Art Crash and the Polish Section of theInternational Society for Contemporary Music awards for her 1999 work "Summer's day."[11]
In 2004 she received a distinction in the Musica Sacra Polish Composers Competition.[12] Her pieceOpalescence won 1st Prize at the Bourges Competition for Electronic Music and was shortlisted for theSPNM awards in 2006.
A few of the many commissions Glowicka received for her works have come from the Society of Promotion of New Music in London for theBBC Scottish Ensemble to perform the piecePerpetuity for the ‘Sounds New’ Festival inAberdeen and the piece was later featured in the 18th International Review of Composers inBelgrade in 2009. Another commission came from a grant by the Polish Ministry of Culture for the CD recording of "Springs and Summers."[13][14]
In 2012 she was commissioned to compose a piece for the New York program "On Silence" marking the centennial ofJohn Cage’s birth, with 12 other composers who were asked, "to reflect on what Cage means in their creative life."[15]
Glowicka, alongside director Krystian Lada, is a founder member of The Airport Society, a Brussels-based cooperative of “opera artists and social entrepreneurs” which creates works focused on social justice issues.[16]
For its 2018 production, the group adapted poems written by Afghan women living under Taliban rule. The content of these poems would have incurred severe punishment for the writer had they been discovered, up to and including the death penalty.[17]
The new work -Unknown, I Live With You - featured mezzo-soprano opera singerMałgorzata Walewska and met with critical acclaim upon its release.[18] The work and the story behind it were the subject of a feature article in a print edition ofVogue Poland.[19]
The cast included American transgender baritoneLucia Lucas. Glowicka told an interviewer that Polish state media, following government guidelines, censored her while promoting the work and told her she was "not allowed to mention or discuss" the inclusion of a transgender singer in the cast.[20]
For its 2020 festival season, Polish cultural festivalWarsaw Autumn challenged Glowicka to create her first-ever radio play.
To create the piece, entitledLilian, Glowicka drew on a 320-page transcript of real WhatsApp messages exchanged between a refugee trapped in Libya and the eponymous Lilian, a professor at a European university. She has talked of the technical challenges in creating the work "not only [as] my first radio play, it was also the first time anyone would be attempting to take a WhatsApp conversation – complete with photos, emojis, and so on – and try and adapt that into a performative work."[21]
Glowicka held an Artistic Residency at theStudio for Electro Instrumental Music (STEIM) inAmsterdam, composing and performing pieces that included traditional instruments, live video and electronics. In 2009 she presented the pieceQuasi Rublev, inspired byAndrei Tarkovsky's 1966 filmAndrei Rublev, with Goska Isphording playingharpsichord andRoos Theuws performing live visuals.
Together with video artist Emmanuel Flores, Glowicka presentedTurbulence performed solely by computer and visuals, noting the influence ofAustrian filmmaker Gustav Deutsch. In 2010 Glowicka and Flores collaborated again with the 15 minute performance pieceRETINa inspired by the pioneering science ofÉtienne-Jules Marey that impacted cinema and the early documentary filmmakerDziga Vertov.[22][23][24]
Glowicka's distinct style of composition has been described as having the "specific power of expression and coloring," through using the computer as both a musical instrument and compositional tool.[25]
In a 2006 interview Glowicka said that the strongest, external influences on her music are: "technology - because I cannot write a piece now without electronics as I am fascinated by it, and science in the way that I'm structuring my pieces in order to mirror or extend natural physical phenomenon."[26]
This was later emphasized by her project notes on the pieceTurbulence while in artistic residency atSTEIM: "The projectTurbulence is inspired by physical phenomenon – its force, unpredictability and its complexity."[27]
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