The music of Michael
Gatonska (1967; Norwood, MA, United States) has been performed by the Minnesota
Orchestra, the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra,
the Pacific Symphony, the Hartford Symphony, the Polish Radio Orchestra of Kraków,
the Civic Orchestra of Chicago-Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Ossia Chamber
Orchestra, String Orchestra of New York City (SONYC), the Chicago Chamber
Musicians, Sinfonietta Cracovia, Talea Ensemble, Ensemble Helix, Locrian
Chamber Players, Absolute Ensemble, the Radom Chamber Orchestra, Trio Lorien
and Kwartet DAFO among others. Praised by critics for his “warm masterful
orchestration,” “imaginative textures” and “exceptional stunning moments,” he
has been described as a composer with “a gift that commands respect and
attention.” Joshua Kosman from the San Francisco Chronicle writes “[But]
Gatonska’a orchestral writing is so evocative and surprising that it’s
impossible to resist.”
He has received numerous awards for his compositions including the 2017
Krzysztof Penderecki International Composer Competition ‘Arboretum’, 1st and
2nd Prizes in the 2016 Sinfonietta Cracovia ‘Sinfonietta for Sinfonietta’
Composer Competition, a 2013 Akrai Fellowship, 1st Place in the 2012 American
Prize for his orchestral composition The Whispering Wind, and fellowship,
commissions and grant awards from the Civitella Ranieri, the Kosciuszko
Foundation, the Puffin Foundation, the Chicago Symphony First Hearing Award,
the Craig and Janet Swann Composition Prize, ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer
Awards, the American Music Center, Meet the Composer, the American Composers
Forum, the Roberts Foundation, the Hoeschler Foundation, the Underwood/ACO
Commission, a MATA Festival Commission, NYSCA, the Connecticut Commission on
Art, the Field, the Mary Cary Flagler Charitable Trust and he is a MacDowell
Colony Fellow. In 2010, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in the
Field of Arts by the Connecticut Valley Education Foundation. His music has
been recorded and issued on Albany Records, New World Records, Major Who Media,
the American Composers Orchestra Digital Downloads Series, DUX Record Producers
(Poland) and the Einstein Records labels. As a sound artist he was awarded a
2013 Akrai Fellowship to record sound signatures in Palazzolo Acreide, Sicily,
and in 2014 the Art!Climate CEIartE sound art Open Category Award.
Conductors Osmo Vänskä, Marin Alsop, Carl St. Clair, Brad Lubman, Kristjan
Järvi, Mischa Santora, Jurek Dybal, Paul Lustig Dunkel, Michael Lewanski, Dawid
Runtz and other new music champions have conducted his works. He has composed
solo works for the pianist Kathleen Supove, the violinist Mari Kimura, the
electric-cellist Jeffrey Krieger, the percussionist Julie Licata, and for the
flautist Paul Lustig Dunkel.
His music has been performed at festivals around the world including the
Emanations Festival (Poland), the Sinfonietta Festival (Poland), the
HNMFestival (Hartford), the International Kraków International Composers
Festival (Poland), the Teagu Festival of Contemporary Music (South Korea), the
Festival Internacional de Musica Contemporanea (Colombia), UTAS Festival
(Australia), the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, the Tribeca New Music
Festival, the MATA Festival, New Music Miami, Piano Spheres—Exploring Music of
Our Time (Los Angeles), the CSN New Music Festival (Las Vegas), the Kosciuszko
Foundation Chamber Music Series (NYC), and at REAL Art Ways (Hartford).
Michael received a doctorate
from the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw. He studied music
composition with Krzysztof Penderecki, Marek Stachowski, and Zbigniew Bujarski
at the Academy of Music in Kraków, Poland, and with Elias Tanenbaum and Aaron
J. Kernis at the Manhattan School of Music. He has taught music at the
Hoff-Barthelson Music School and he has served as faculty on the Facultad de
Artes at the Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia. He is a member of ASCAP
and the Zwiazek Kompozytorów Polskich (ZKP).
[But] Gatonska’a orchestral writing is so
evocative and surprising that it’s impossible to resist.
-Joshua
Kosman, Music Critic, San Francisco
“Gatonska’s ‘The
Whispering Wind’ may have been the best. It builds from a rustle to a
fumbling menagerie, with clumped and jagged harmonies, blaring circus brass and
thrusting plastic rhythms out of free jazz.” - Richard Scheinin, Music Critic, San
Jose Mercury News
Michael Gatonska's ‘Transformation of
the Hummingbird’ is the closest of the four works to the textural experiments
of today's avant-garde, but none of its gestures sound gratuitous, and its
imaginative textures consistently captivate. -Classics Today.com --David Hurwitz
‘Sugar Maple Cosmica’
for
Flute and un-pitched percussion: There were exceptional moments, especially
a stunning passage in which the alto flute, played extremely lightly and with
great agility, perfectly matched the percussion. Suddenly time stood still. If Mr. Gatonska achieved that even for a
minute in this full-scale work it means that his gift commands respect and
attention. –2010 New
Music Connoisseur