About Me
Kari Besharse is a composer working in both electroacoustic and acoustic mediums. She is interested in finding new ways to combine and share ideas and materials between the two mediums through a cross-fertilization of processes and ideas. Timbre, texture, and sound are essential players in her works, which are often generated from a group of sonic objects or material archetypes that undergo processes of rupture, degradation, alternation, and expansion. Kari is inspired by the visual arts, literature, and nature and has completed several successful collaborations with dancers. She is currently completing her doctoral studies at the University of Illinois, where she also holds the position of Visiting Lecturer in Composition/Theory. She completed her undergraduate studies in composition at the University of Missouri at Kansas City and her Masters degree at the University of Texas at Austin. Primary composition teachers have been Stephen Andrew Taylor, Guy Garnett, Russell Pinkston, Donald Grantham, Robert Cooper, Rick Taube, and James Mobberly. Her music has been presented around the world by venues and organizations such as The California Ear Unit, Society of Composers, Inc., Texas Computer Musicians Network, The LaTex Festival, The Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival, Electronic Music Midwest, ICMC, SEAMUS, Bourges, Elektrophonie, Third Practice, 60X60, The Electroacoustic Juke Joint Festival, The San Francisco Composers Forum, and Pulse Field. Kari was awarded a Bourges Residence Prize for Small Things, an electroacoustic work written in Csound and Protools, which uses the sounds of the frogs and insects of Austin, Texas as its source material. Recent projects include Ecotope for twelve players and live electronics, which was premiered by the University of Illinois New Music Ensemble in February 2008.
