Michael Kurek, Composer profile picture

Michael Kurek, Composer

About Me


WELCOME! SCROLL DOWN FOR BIO INFORMATION, BUT FIRST...
CLICK ON THE CD ICON FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE NEW MICHAEL KUREK CD. PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS A VIRTUAL CD, ONLY AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD, BUT THEN YOU CAN BURN CD COPIES OF YOUR OWN ON YOUR OWN COMPUTER.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER CD ON iTUNES!
CLICK HERE TO ORDER CD ON SONY CONNECT
CLICK HERE TO ORDER ON RUCKUS (Search under Kurek at top)
CLICK HERE TO ORDER CD ON PAYPLAY MUSIC SERVICE!
CLICK HERE TO ORDER CD ON TRADEBIT MUSIC SERVICE
CLICK HERE TO ORDER CD ON GREAT INDIE (Search under Kurek.)
Hi, everyone! Welcome to my site! I am honored that you are here and hope you like the music! The bits above are just very short clips from a 70-minute CD. People who have purchased the whole download say they are not disappointed! Just click above to get to any of the download sites. Below is the "official" bio used on concert programs (okay, it's a little stuffy, ha ha). Best wishes, Michael
American composer Michael Kurek has steadily earned international recognition through important awards and through the performance, publication, and recording of his works for the concert hall. In recent years he has become known for the evolution of his style from academic modernism to a lush, tonal melodicism, powerfully making the case for greater aesthetic pluralism in the contemporary concert hall. His music has been performed and broadcast as widely as France, England, Germany, Denmark, Portugal, Sweden, Japan, Korea, Czech Republic, and Russia. In the U.S., it has had broadcasts on NPR and its affiliates, also commissioned and performed by many professional symphony orchestras and chamber ensembles, and at important venues, such as the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington. A frequent guest composer and speaker at universities around the country, he has been profiled in several national music magazines and journals, and is an active member of the Recording Academy (NARAS). He has received numerous national composition awards and fellowships, including the highest annual award for lifetime achievement in composition from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, their Academy Award in Music. Michael Kurek studied with European composers Hanz Werner Henze and Eugene Kurtz, and with American Pulitzer Prize-winners Leslie Bassett and William Bolcom at the University of Michigan, where he earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition. Professor Kurek currently serves at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. His music is recorded on New World Records (New York) and published by International Music Service (New York), Lyon and Healy (Chicago), and Spectrum Music Press (Los Angeles). For more information, go to Michael Kurek's website at www.michaelkurek.com

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 19/06/2006
Band Website: http://www.michaelkurek.com
Band Members:


MySpace Layouts

CLICK ON THIS SENTENCE TO GO STRAIGHT TO MICHAEL'S FOOD PAGE!

Please see blog for info about the performers on this CD. I compose music for a variety of classical symphony orchestras and chamber-music ensembles of all types. Please visit my main composer site and get a free download (near the bottom of the homepage) of an entire 15-minute movement by clicking on the "band website" link above. I am hoping to share my music with a wider audience here on MySpace, perhaps some people who mostly listen to non-classical music. I have a background playing all kinds of music myself, and I think many kinds of styles can exhibit genius and transport us to a wonderful place. I hope you enjoy my work! By the way, I understand that some people are on MySpace to network socially, but please understand that I'm only here to share my music, not to meet or correspond socially. I do hope you will buy the download and enjoy it! There are only about eight minutes of excerpts on my site from a 70-minute CD! -- So please get THE WHOLE THING at one of the download sites listed here! Many thanks! You can download it to your computer and burn a CD, if you wish. All the best, Michael
Influences: Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Samuel Barber
Record Label: New World Records (NY) and a new Indie on iTunes
Type of Label: Major

My Blog

Welcome, heres some info about this page.

Hi, everyone.  I'm Michael Kurek, one of those rare people -- a classical composer who isn't dead yet! We don't get platinum records in my line of work, ha ha, but we love what we do.  ...
Posted by on Mon, 19 Jun 2006 08:19:00 GMT

New recording on my site

I have just posted an excerpt from my composition called: Concertino for Celesta and Orchestra: "Fairy Dreams" I left out the middle section (hence a tiny gap at 1:24), but 5 minutes remain. If you'd ...
Posted by on Thu, 01 Nov 2007 06:36:00 GMT

Performer Information

The trio was written for the trio of Carolyn Huebl, violin; Felix Wang, cello, and Melissa Rose, piano (and this is a live recording of their premiere performance in Turner Hall in Nashville).  A...
Posted by on Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:53:00 GMT