Svjetlana Bukvich
Svjetlana Bukvich
"one of the most interesting electronic writers around" (SoundWordSight), Svjetlana Bukvich first came to the attention of the European music world following her appearances as piano soloist with the Sarajevo Philharmonic Orchestra, at the age of 16, and the following year with Edinburgh George Heriot Symphony Orchestra. By twenty-one, Ms. Bukvich had composed her first symphony, which was to be premiered in 1992, when the war in Yugoslavia intervened. Under harrowing circumstances that read like a political war thriller, she escaped her besieged city of Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina to Belgrade, where the American Soros Foundation took unprecedented action to provide her with a stipend and a one-way ticket to America where she could pursue a full scholarship at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. There, her interests broadened to include music synthesis, programming, microtonality, avant-garde performance, and video art. In 1994, she was awarded with one of the first M.F.A. degrees in multimedia offered in the United States. Among her mentors were Philip Glass, Carl Stone, Neil Rolnick, Kurt Munkacsi, Martin Bresnick, and Robert Ashley.
Ms. Bukvich has composed for concert stage, dance, theater and film, and has worked with diverse ensembles and instrumentalists such as ETHEL String Quartet, the Sarajevo Philharmonic, Shattered Glass Ensemble, The Lafayette Chorale, Martha Mooke, Tony Levin, Mari Kimura, Rob Schwimmer, Cornelius Dufallo, Johnny Reinhard, Leonardo Suarez Paz, Kamala Sankaram, Ha-Yang Kim, Susan Aquila, Eddie Venegas, Jessica Meyer, Jacqui Kerrod and Mordy Ferber, among many others. She has received grants and sponsorships from USArtists International, New Music USA, the American Composers Forum, New England Foundation for the Arts, IACD at Harvard University, O'Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation, The Frances Richard Fund for Innovative Artists of Promise, and the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Fellowship in Music/Sound. Described as “ecstatic musical experience” (New Music Connoisseur), her works have been presented widely in the U.S. and abroad including Beijing, London, Berlin, Belgrade, Johannesburg, Helsinki, Odessa, and Copenhagen. Ms. Bukvich is featured in the Jennifer Kelly book In Her Own Words: Conversations with Composers in the United States where she is identified as one of the 25 outstanding women composers in America whose "processes can be viewed as alternatives to convention, for they expand accepted definition of composition and venue … ".
Her genre-busting album EVOLUTION (Big Round Records), which she composed, arranged, and produced, was hailed as “nothing short of spectacular“ (Equal Ground) and was heard on more than 20 remarkably diverse radio stations. EXTENSION is her second collection of works, released in March of 2020 on Navona Records. Ms. Bukvich is a contributing author in the book Perspectives on Music Production: Gender in Music Production to be published by Focal Press, Francis and Taylor, United Kingdom, in summer of 2020. She is currently Assistant Professor at City University of New York, and has previously held positions as Adjunct Professor at Pratt Institute and New York University (NYU).
Once You Are Not a Stranger
Year: 2016
Duration (in minutes): 4:10
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: string quartet
Publisher: CBCO MUSIC
Score PDF: bukvichtheearquartet_-_score-5.pdf
Description: Originally commissioned by Janis Brenner and Dancers, "Once You Are Not A Stranger" is the feature title of a 40-minute collaborative media work that looks at the idea of empathy and "otherness" in a multicultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious world. ETHEL string quartet premiered the piece as part of Composers Concordance's Roundtable concert at (le) Poisson Rouge on January 26th, 2017. They are featured in this recording along with Patrick Derivaz on bass guitar and myself on synthesizers. The piece was released on EXTENSION (Navona Recordings). Mastering by Bob Ludwig.
Tattoo
Year: 2013
Duration (in minutes): 4:29
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: electronic and computer works, piano, solo voice(s) with chamber ensemble
Instruments: any female voice, any medium voice, any voice, electronics, mezzo soprano, piano, synthesizer, tape
Publisher: CBCO MUSIC
Score PDF: sbukvichtattooscore-5.pdf
Description: "Tattoo" is part of the 30-minute score Interior Designs, a commission I received from Carolyn Dorfman Dance for their "Celebrate 30! Performance Gala" in spring 2013. The piece features electro-acoustic music, video body mapping and projections, integral lighting, unique costumes, and dancers interacting with vocalist extraordinaire Kamala Sankaram. In the piece, the entire theater becomes an immersive environment that reveals the internal and external worlds of both performer and spectator. In the video, "Tattoo" starts at 21:53.
The piece was released on EXTENSION (Navona Recordings). Mastering by Bob Ludwig.
Back To The Heart-Planet
Year: 2012
Duration (in minutes): 8:46
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: choral
Publisher: CBCO MUSIC
Score PDF: backtotheheart-planetfinal-5.pdf
Description: Many years ago in Sarajevo, I had directed a youth sympho-rock choir. Director and chorus fell in love, but the civil war in Yugoslavia took the project away. "Back to the Heart-Planet" heals this part of my history by referencing the thematic material from that time, bringing it full circle, and exploding into a journey of a loss of innocence and a fuller heart regained.
The piece was commissioned as part of my Alan and Wendy Pesky Artist-in-Residence at Lafayette College (2011-2012). This excerpt features the Lafayette College Concert Choir with Greg Eicher on electric bass, Gary Rissmiller on drum set, and myself on synthesizers. Jennifer Kelly conducted.
You Move Me
Year: 2008
Duration (in minutes): 6:47
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: electronic and computer works
Instruments: any female voice, any low voice, any male voice, any string, any voice, bass voice, electronics, guitar, synthesizer, tape
Publisher: CBCO MUSIC
Description: Inspired by Mordy Ferber's world fusion jazz, Goran Bregovic's film music, and Brian Eno's nineties electronica, "You Move Me" was premiered as part of the 10th edition of The ASCAP Foundation's Thru The Walls series, curated by composer/electric violist Martha Mooke. The series is designed to showcase the work of concert composer/performers whose concert music defies boundaries and genres. The piece was released on EVOLUTION (Big Round Records) featuring Mordy Ferber on electric guitar, Susan Aquila on electric violin Viper, Tony Levin on bass guitar, and myself on synthesizers and vocal. Mastering by Joe Lambert.
Before and After the Tekke
Year: 2006
Duration (in minutes): 8:30
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: electronic and computer works
Instruments: any string, any voice, electronics, synthesizer, tape, violin
Publisher: CBCO MUSIC
Score PDF: beforeandafterthetekkeviolin-5.pdf
Description: "Before and After the Tekke" is inspired by Mesa Selimovic's book about an 18th century dervish in Bosnia, my visit to an 18th century Tekke - dervish monastery - in Herzegovina at the karstic Buna river spring, Bosnian Christian Orthodox and Islamic music idioms, and the sounds of New York City. The piece features tuning of my own design woven with tempered intonation.
If you travel to Bosnia and Herzegovina you won't find this music. It is dreamed up from sounds that I have once known but since forgotten. Violinist Ana Milosavljevic originally commissioned the work. The piece was released on EVOLUTION (Big Round Records) featuring Cornelius Dufallo on violin, Tony Levin on bass and myself on synthesizers. Mastering by Joe Lambert.
EXTENSION
Composers: Svjetlana Bukvich
Label: Navona Records, LLC
Label's Website: https://www.navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6276/#overview
Product ID: B0849XP4GC
Buy URL: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0849XP4GC/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_r4sFEb0S5K018
Buy URL 2: https://music.apple.com/us/album/extension/1501562599
EVOLUTION
Composers: Svjetlana Bukvich
Label: Parma Recordings LLC
Label's Website: https://www.bigroundrecords.com/catalog/br8931/
Product ID: BR8931
Buy URL 2: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/evolution/id843365266?ign-mpt=uo%3D4
Once You Are Not A Stranger
Composer: Svjetlana Bukvich
Description: Music Composed, Arranged and Produced by Svjetlana Bukvich. Performed by ETHEL: Kip Jones & Corin Lee, violins, Ralph Farris, viola, Dorothy Lawson, cello. Soundtrack: Patrick Derivaz, electric bass, Svjetlana Bukvich, synthesizers. Originally commissioned by Janis Brenner and Dancers as a 40-minute collaborative media work that looks at the idea of empathy and "otherness" in a multicultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious world.
Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV-mXllseRY
Before And After the Tekke
Composer: Svjetlana Bukvich
Description: "Before and After the Tekke" was presented in the Here and Now Series at one of New York's most unique music venues—a floating barge with the backdrop of the East River and lower Manhattan skyline—as part of Journaling (part five), "a series of performances in which Dufallo documents his own work with extraordinary living composers while tracking various paths in twenty-first century music." Also on the program were compositions by Kinan Azmeh, Paul Brantley, Jaco
Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2rpAvfgHks
Interior Designs
Composer: Svjetlana Bukvich
Description: Bukvich's collaboration with the Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company - a 30-minute electroacoustic score commissioned for the company's "Celebrate 30! Performance Gala" in spring 2013, premiered at Kean University, NJ.
Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMKKj_Ld0ps
Ms. Bukvich has composed for concert stage, dance, theater and film, and has worked with diverse ensembles and instrumentalists such as ETHEL String Quartet, the Sarajevo Philharmonic, Shattered Glass Ensemble, The Lafayette Chorale, Martha Mooke, Tony Levin, Mari Kimura, Rob Schwimmer, Cornelius Dufallo, Johnny Reinhard, Leonardo Suarez Paz, Kamala Sankaram, Ha-Yang Kim, Susan Aquila, Eddie Venegas, Jessica Meyer, Jacqui Kerrod and Mordy Ferber, among many others. She has received grants and sponsorships from USArtists International, New Music USA, the American Composers Forum, New England Foundation for the Arts, IACD at Harvard University, O'Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation, The Frances Richard Fund for Innovative Artists of Promise, and the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Fellowship in Music/Sound. Described as “ecstatic musical experience” (New Music Connoisseur), her works have been presented widely in the U.S. and abroad including Beijing, London, Berlin, Belgrade, Johannesburg, Helsinki, Odessa, and Copenhagen. Ms. Bukvich is featured in the Jennifer Kelly book In Her Own Words: Conversations with Composers in the United States where she is identified as one of the 25 outstanding women composers in America whose "processes can be viewed as alternatives to convention, for they expand accepted definition of composition and venue ... ".
Her genre-busting album EVOLUTION (Big Round Records), which she composed, arranged, and produced, was hailed as “nothing short of spectacular“ (Equal Ground) and was heard on more than 20 remarkably diverse radio stations. EXTENSION is her second collection of works, released in March of 2020 on Navona Records. Ms. Bukvich is a contributing author in the book Perspectives on Music Production: Gender in Music Production to be published by Focal Press, Francis and Taylor, United Kingdom, in summer of 2020. She is currently Assistant Professor at City University of New York, and has previously held positions as Adjunct Professor at Pratt Institute and New York University (NYU).
Once You Are Not a Stranger
Year: 2016
Duration (in minutes): 4:10
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: string quartet
Publisher: CBCO MUSIC
Score PDF: bukvichtheearquartet_-_score-5.pdf
Description: Originally commissioned by Janis Brenner and Dancers, "Once You Are Not A Stranger" is the feature title of a 40-minute collaborative media work that looks at the idea of empathy and "otherness" in a multicultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious world. ETHEL string quartet premiered the piece as part of Composers Concordance's Roundtable concert at (le) Poisson Rouge on January 26th, 2017. They are featured in this recording along with Patrick Derivaz on bass guitar and myself on synthesizers. The piece was released on EXTENSION (Navona Recordings). Mastering by Bob Ludwig.
Tattoo
Year: 2013
Duration (in minutes): 4:29
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: electronic and computer works, piano, solo voice(s) with chamber ensemble
Instruments: any female voice, any medium voice, any voice, electronics, mezzo soprano, piano, synthesizer, tape
Publisher: CBCO MUSIC
Score PDF: sbukvichtattooscore-5.pdf
Description: "Tattoo" is part of the 30-minute score Interior Designs, a commission I received from Carolyn Dorfman Dance for their "Celebrate 30! Performance Gala" in spring 2013. The piece features electro-acoustic music, video body mapping and projections, integral lighting, unique costumes, and dancers interacting with vocalist extraordinaire Kamala Sankaram. In the piece, the entire theater becomes an immersive environment that reveals the internal and external worlds of both performer and spectator. In the video, "Tattoo" starts at 21:53.
The piece was released on EXTENSION (Navona Recordings). Mastering by Bob Ludwig.
Back To The Heart-Planet
Year: 2012
Duration (in minutes): 8:46
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: choral
Publisher: CBCO MUSIC
Score PDF: backtotheheart-planetfinal-5.pdf
Description: Many years ago in Sarajevo, I had directed a youth sympho-rock choir. Director and chorus fell in love, but the civil war in Yugoslavia took the project away. "Back to the Heart-Planet" heals this part of my history by referencing the thematic material from that time, bringing it full circle, and exploding into a journey of a loss of innocence and a fuller heart regained.
The piece was commissioned as part of my Alan and Wendy Pesky Artist-in-Residence at Lafayette College (2011-2012). This excerpt features the Lafayette College Concert Choir with Greg Eicher on electric bass, Gary Rissmiller on drum set, and myself on synthesizers. Jennifer Kelly conducted.
You Move Me
Year: 2008
Duration (in minutes): 6:47
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: electronic and computer works
Instruments: any female voice, any low voice, any male voice, any string, any voice, bass voice, electronics, guitar, synthesizer, tape
Publisher: CBCO MUSIC
Description: Inspired by Mordy Ferber's world fusion jazz, Goran Bregovic's film music, and Brian Eno's nineties electronica, "You Move Me" was premiered as part of the 10th edition of The ASCAP Foundation's Thru The Walls series, curated by composer/electric violist Martha Mooke. The series is designed to showcase the work of concert composer/performers whose concert music defies boundaries and genres. The piece was released on EVOLUTION (Big Round Records) featuring Mordy Ferber on electric guitar, Susan Aquila on electric violin Viper, Tony Levin on bass guitar, and myself on synthesizers and vocal. Mastering by Joe Lambert.
Before and After the Tekke
Year: 2006
Duration (in minutes): 8:30
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: electronic and computer works
Instruments: any string, any voice, electronics, synthesizer, tape, violin
Publisher: CBCO MUSIC
Score PDF: beforeandafterthetekkeviolin-5.pdf
Description: "Before and After the Tekke" is inspired by Mesa Selimovic's book about an 18th century dervish in Bosnia, my visit to an 18th century Tekke - dervish monastery - in Herzegovina at the karstic Buna river spring, Bosnian Christian Orthodox and Islamic music idioms, and the sounds of New York City. The piece features tuning of my own design woven with tempered intonation.
If you travel to Bosnia and Herzegovina you won't find this music. It is dreamed up from sounds that I have once known but since forgotten. Violinist Ana Milosavljevic originally commissioned the work. The piece was released on EVOLUTION (Big Round Records) featuring Cornelius Dufallo on violin, Tony Levin on bass and myself on synthesizers. Mastering by Joe Lambert.
EXTENSION
Composers: Svjetlana Bukvich
Label: Navona Records, LLC
Label's Website: https://www.navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6276/#overview
Product ID: B0849XP4GC
Buy URL 2: https://music.apple.com/us/album/extension/1501562599
EVOLUTION
Composers: Svjetlana Bukvich
Label: Parma Recordings LLC
Label's Website: https://www.bigroundrecords.com/catalog/br8931/
Product ID: BR8931
Buy URL 2: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/evolution/id843365266?ign-mpt=uo%3D4
Once You Are Not A Stranger
Composer: Svjetlana Bukvich
Description: Music Composed, Arranged and Produced by Svjetlana Bukvich. Performed by ETHEL: Kip Jones & Corin Lee, violins, Ralph Farris, viola, Dorothy Lawson, cello. Soundtrack: Patrick Derivaz, electric bass, Svjetlana Bukvich, synthesizers. Originally commissioned by Janis Brenner and Dancers as a 40-minute collaborative media work that looks at the idea of empathy and "otherness" in a multicultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious world.
Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV-mXllseRY
Before And After the Tekke
Composer: Svjetlana Bukvich
Description: "Before and After the Tekke" was presented in the Here and Now Series at one of New York's most unique music venues—a floating barge with the backdrop of the East River and lower Manhattan skyline—as part of Journaling (part five), "a series of performances in which Dufallo documents his own work with extraordinary living composers while tracking various paths in twenty-first century music." Also on the program were compositions by Kinan Azmeh, Paul Brantley, Jaco
Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2rpAvfgHks
Interior Designs
Composer: Svjetlana Bukvich
Description: Bukvich's collaboration with the Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company - a 30-minute electroacoustic score commissioned for the company's "Celebrate 30! Performance Gala" in spring 2013, premiered at Kean University, NJ.
Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMKKj_Ld0ps