composers (G)

composer, literary scholar, essayist, reviewer, translator; also professional graphic artist and pianist. Born on 15 March 1961 in Bytom, Poland. In 1989 settled in Canada. Grella-Możejko holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Alberta for his dissertation on Tadeusz Peiper, Poland's leading avant-garde writer and theorist, chiefly active between World Wars (1918-1939); an M.Mus. in Composition from the same university, where he studied with Alfred Fisher, Henry Klumpenhouwer and the late Christopher Lewis; and an M.A. degree in Political Sciences from the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland. He also studied composition privately with the late Prof. Edward Bogusławski and Prof. Bogusław Schaeffer. In 1994, Grella-Mozejko was the only Canadian selected to participate in the prestigious "June in Buffalo" Festival and Conference, where he attended lectures by and master classes with Milton Babbitt, Donald Erb, David Felder, Lukas Foss, Roger Reynolds, and Charles Wuorinen.
In 1997, he won the Alberta Motion Picture Industries Association (AMPIA) Award in Musical Score/Composer category (Black Angels by Cynthia Wells). Other prizes and awards include the All-Polish Composers' Competition in Łódź, Poland (1985, aennea for guitar solo); the All-Polish Composers' Competition in Kraków, Poland (1988, Motet for six vocal soloists), and The Pierre Boulez Canadian Composers Competition in Halifax, Nova Scotia (1991, Horror vacui - triptych for strings named by Pierre Boulez in third place). Grella-Możejko is also recipient of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship (2000-2002) as well as the University of Alberta Beryl Barns Award, Walter H Johns Fellowship, Andrew Stewart Memorial Graduate Prize, Marie Louise Imrie Graduate Award and, in 2004, professional development grant awarded by The Canada Council for the Arts.
Described by the German press as demonstrating "uncompromising honesty" («Neue Zeitschrift für Musik»), praised for his unorthodox aesthetics («Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung»), and whose work is called "brawny, high-contrast… full of rich counterpoint and compelling textural changes" («The New York Times»), "strikingly individual" («The Toronto Star»), and "wonderful-sounding" («The Buffalo News»), Grella-Mozejko has written on commissions from, among others, The Alberta Foundation for the Arts, The Canada Council for the Arts, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canadian Polish Congress, Edmonton Arts Council/Clifford E. Lee Fund, International Conversatorium of Organ Music, Polish Ministry of Culture and Art, as well as Polish Radio, Canadian Music Centre, and The Flanders Festival.
His orchestral, chamber and electroacoustic music as well as his visual works have been presented in twenty-nine countries in centres such as Antwerp, Athens, Bangkok, Basel, Berlin, Bilbao, Dublin, Geneva, Kaunas, Kraków, London, Los Angeles, Lausanne, Ljubljana, Łódź, Mexico City, Montréal, New York, Ottawa, Paris, Prague, Princeton, St. Petersburg, Seoul, Sydney, Toronto, Turin, Utrecht, Vancouver, Vienna, Warsaw, Wrocław, and Zürich.
His work in multimedia has gained international recognition, as have his soundtracks. Grella-Mozejko has worked with a number of critically acclaimed filmmakers and video artists, including Renata Mikos (Poland), Cynthia Wells, Jeremy Rittwage, Christopher Payne, and Lindsay McIntyre (all Canada).
In 2006 founded, and has since performed with, Ensemble Mujirushi, an interdisciplinary collective featuring Canada’s leading New Music. A “supergroup” («The Edmonton Journal»), which specialises in incorporating live electronics and interactive video into its performances, the Ensemble had its first European tour in November 2009, appearing at the prestigious «Audio Art» festival in Kraków, Poland. Another tour, this time in Canada, followed in October 2010, taking the ensemble to Lethbridge, Saskatoon, Thunder Bay, Kitchener-Waterloo, Toronto, and Montréal.
Focussing on the relationships between sound, text and image, Grella-Mozejko has published in major scholarly and popular periodicals in Canada, Europe, and the UK, including the «Canadian Slavonic Papers», «Contemporary Music Review», «MusicWorks», «The Alberta New Music & Arts Review», to mention just a few. Between 2009 and 2011, until the publication’s closure, he covered Canada’s music and arts scene for Edmonton’s weekly, «SEE Magazine». Since 2009, he hosts his own show, «Tonus Vivus – Avant-garde and Beyond», on CJSR Radio in Edmonton, available worldwide on the Internet www.cjsr.com.

(May 2012)

The composer’s own internet site: www.mozejko.org

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