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Jennifer Stasack
Professor of Music and Chair
Sloan Music Center 107
P. O. Box 7131
Davidson, NC 28035-7131
704.894.2353
704.894.2593 (fax)
FEDEX/UPS
209 Ridge Road
Davidson, NC 28036-7131
Active as both a composer and ethnomusicologist, Dr. Jennifer Stasack has the unique honor of being the first woman commissioned by WGUC-FM Cincinnati, an honor received while completing her DMA in Composition from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (1991). The Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Gerhard Samuel premiered the commissioned piece, Cassandra.
Dr. Stasack combines her creative and ethnomusicological interests by drawing on aesthetics and formal designs indigenous to non-western musical systems in her compositional work. Her studies of Asian music include summer residencies at the Akademi Seni Karawitan in Surakarta, Java (1989), the Korean Traditional Performing Arts Center in Seoul (1993 and 1994), and fieldwork in India during the summer of 1996 and Japan in the summer of 1999. As a result of her musical studies in Korea, the Korean Ministry of Culture has declared Dr. Stasack a Cultural Ambassador.
Composing music primarily for chamber ensembles, mixed and women’s choruses, percussion, and select non-western instruments, Dr. Stasack’s commissions cover a wide gamut of styles and venues. Crossing Rivers II, for flute, violin, viola and cello, was commissioned by the U.S.-based Mallarmé Chamber Players, and received its European premiere by the St. Petersburg Quartet. The Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble commissioned Offering of Tribute, based on Korean Confucian Ancestral Shrine Music, for their 20th Anniversary Season. Six Elegies Dancing, commissioned by Swedish percussionist, Mikael Ericson, has become part of the standard, international repertoire for solo marimba, and was recorded by virtuoso Bob Van Sice for release on MODE Records. The Korean Broadcasting System premiered Setting Stones, for solo kayageum (Korean zither). Stasack regularly receives commissions for arrangements and original compositions for women’s chorus, which have been adopted by over twenty women’s choirs throughout the United States and Canada. Her most recent commissions come from the Belgian recorder quartet, Carré, and American saxophonist, Patrick Posey. Her works are performed by a variety of international performing artists and groups in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Korea and South Africa.
Awards
Annual ASCAP Standard Award (since 1991)
National Endowment for the Arts
Norton Stevens Fellow, MacDowell Colony
North Carolina Arts Council
Korean Performing Arts Institute
Meet the Composer Arts International
Distinguished Alumna, University of Cincinnati.
The Presser Music Award
Hausermann Family Fellowship in Composition
Recent Academic Conferences
2002 - Featured composer, 31srt John Donald Robb Composers’ Symposium, University of New Mexico.
2000 - Discussant, Fifth International Asian Music Conference in Seoul, Korea.
1999 - Panelist and composer, Society of Composers, Inc. Regional Conference, University of Hawaii.
Courses Taught
MUS 141 World Musics
MUS 242 Music of Asia
MUS 245 Music in World Religions
MUS 261 Introduction to Composition
MUS 262 Songwriting and Transcription
MUS 263 Composition in Non-Western Styles
MUS 361 Advanced Composition
Contact Jennifer Stasack