Aleksandra Panasik - OBOElectronics (2023)

PGMaudio – the label started, owned and run by Canadian composer, laptop performer and sound engineer Piotr Grella-Możejko [pron. Pyotr Grella-Mozheyko] – is proud to announce Aleksandra Panasik’s CD whose programme centres on the works for oboe and electronics. One of Europe’s outstanding promoters of New Classical Music, Aleksandra has commissioned and performed a great number of new works. This CD marks her album-length solo debut. The CD comprises works by seven composers representing various sources of inspiration, techniques, and styles.

Aleksandra Bilińska is a Polish composer, lecturer, ethnomusicologist, and improviser. She created electronic music for choreographers and dance theatres. Her concert works have been performed in Brazil, Czechia, Germany, Poland, Puerto Rico, Taiwan, and Ukraine. #2020…Scream for AleksandraP. is the fifth link in a cycle under the shared title #2020 and is devoted to the artists who had to face everyday reality during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ana Lara is a vital personality in Mexican contemporary music. Ana is highly regarded as a composer as well as promoter and programmer. She has worked as artistic director of contemporary music at Festival Internacional Cervantino and created the Festival Internacional Música y Escena. En dirección al mar, bajo la luz del búho [Seaward by Owl-light], takes its title from the Mexican poet María Baranda who also alludes to a poem by Dylan Thomas. So, it is a poetic journey in which the electronic part colours the timbre of the oboe.

Images inspire most of the US composer Maria Lord-Kniveton’s works as she seeks to share her experience of the places she has lived, the people she has known, and the spiritual world she inhabits. St. Margaret and the Dragon recounts the life of St. Margaret of Antioch, a Christian shepherdess imprisoned by a Roman provost for refusing to renounce her faith in order to marry him. After a victorious death, St. Margaret follows her Shepherd into Paradise.

South Korean composer Sungji Hong’s music has been described as “a work of iridescent freshness” (BBC Music Magazine), “the sound is utterly luminous” (Fanfare Magazine), and “the harmonies and fluid dynamics were modern” (The New York Times). Sungji is an Assistant Professor of Music Composition at the University of North Texas. The inspiration for EXEPNEFSEN came from the Scriptures, namely the following quote: “With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last” (Mark 15:37). EXEPNEFSEN is a Greek word meaning “he breathed his last”.

Polish composer Katarzyna Arnhold studied composition at the Academy of Music in Wrocław and at the Amsterdam Conservatory where she graduated with an M.Mus. Her works have been frequently presented at festivals and concerts of contemporary music. The Augustinian doctrine, which contrasts the Earthly City with the City of God, was the source of inspiration for Civitas terrena – Civitas Dei. St. Augustine’s duality represents the eternal struggle between God and the Devil.

Canadian composer Bekah Simms’ works have been heralded as “cacophonous, jarring, oppressive — and totally engrossing!” (CBC Music), “visceral contemporary music that enfolds external inspirations with dazzling rigor and logic” (Peter Margasak) and lauded for its “sheer range of ingenious material, expressive range and sonic complexity” (The Journal of Music). Skinscape II is the second in a series of works that examine the interaction between the soloist and an electronic, disembodied version of themselves: the transformation of something intimately familiar into something processed and alien.

Described by the German press as demonstrating “uncompromising honesty” (Neue Zeitschrift für Musik), praised for his unorthodox aesthetics (Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung), Canadian-Polish composer Piotr Grella-Możejko’s works have so far been presented in thirty-seven countries on five continents. GRAleksandra: the Polish word “gra” is the inflection of the verb “grać”, “to play”, and therefore the title is itself a play on words. The intended expressive effect is that of brutal, overwhelming, inexorable forward push.

Tracklist:

01. #2020…Scream for AleksandraP
02. En dirección al mar, bajo la luz del búho
03. St. Margaret and the Dragon
04. EXEPNEFSEN
05. Civitas terrena-Civitas Dei
06. Skinscape II
07. GRAleksandra