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All Music Guide:
American modern composer Lois V. Vierk has been based mostly out of NYC, where she has collaborated with artists including choreographer Anita Feldman. Born outside of Chicago in 1951, Vierk went to California for college, studying under Morton Subotnick and Leonard Stein, among others. Her music studies then turned to gagaku (Japanese court music) for a dozen years, first in L.A. then in Tokyo where she studied with Sukeyasu Shiba, a lead flutist of the Imperial Court Orchestra. The gradual build in Vierk's compositions are one manifestation of gagaku's influence upon her own music. She also composed the gagaku work "Silversword" (1996), which was commissioned for performance by an ensemble led by former teacher Shiba; the premiere occurred at New York's Lincoln Center. Vierk's work first became prominent in the '80s, and since then she has received commissions from musicians including pianists Aki Takahashi and Frederic Rzewski, and accordionist Guy Klucevsek. Her compositions have been performed by a number of esteemed ensembles such as Kronos Quartet, Ensemble Modern, and Relâche, and at music festivals in Europe and North America. Vierk's music has been recorded for CRI, O.O. Discs, Tzadik, XI, and Sony.
Wikipedia:
Lois V Vierk (born August 4, 1951, Hammond, Indiana) is a "post-minimalist" or "totalist" composer who lives in New York City.
She received a B.A. degree in piano and ethnomusicology from UCLA in 1974. She then attended Cal Arts, studying composition with Mel Powell, Leonard Stein, and Morton Subotnick, receiving her M.F.A. in 1978. She has conducted extensive study of gagaku music, studying for ten years with Suenobu Togi in Los Angeles, and for two years in Tokyo with Sukeyasu Shiba (the lead ryūteki player in Japan's Imperial Court Orchestra).
She has written many chamber works for different ensembles which are multiples of the same instrument. Her work uses glissando prominently and builds exponentially in level of activity. More recently she has written for mixed instrument ensembles, such as in her piece Timberline (music) commissioned by the Relâche Ensemble, and Red Shift which appeared on the CD Bang on a Can Live Vol. 2.
She has also composed for gagaku ensemble.
In 1993, she was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.
