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Tonia Ko
Born in Hong Kong in 1988 and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, Tonia Ko's music reflects and embraces her multi-cultural upbringing. As a composer, Tonia has made valuable contributions to the contemporary music scene in notable institutions. Her compositions have been performed by ensembles including the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Eastman Chorale, New York Treble Singers, Hawaii Youth Opera Chorus, Luna Nova New Music Ensemble, Modern Brass Ensemble, and the Vancouver Miniaturist Society. Her orchestral piece Afterfalls was selected for performance by the Eastman Philharmonia in the newly renovated Kodak Hall in November 2009. In addition, the celebrated Eastman Wind Ensemble is expected to premiere Tonia's new work, Dwellings in March of 2011.
She has participated in festivals such as the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau, Brevard Music Center, UNL Chamber Music Institute, and the Belvedere Chamber Music Festival. She was a participating composer in both the 2008 and 2010 Women in Music Festival for which her music was commissioned and performed. She also worked closely on her vocal music with renowned soprano Tony Arnold and poet Lia Purpura for the Warren Benson Forum for Creativity in 2009.
Tonia is currently a first-year Master's student at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music, where she also serves as an Associate Instructor of Music Theory. She completed her undergraduate degree at the Eastman School of Music, graduating with highest distinction. Tonia is a three-time recipient of the Lois Lane Prize awarded by the Eastman composition department. Her teachers include Robert Morris, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, David Liptak, and Donald Womack. She has also studied with influential French composers Allain Gaussin and François Paris at Fontainebleau.
A devoted pianist, Tonia has studied with Vincent Lenti and Ernest Chang. She was also a member of the Eastman Chorale and an alumna of the Hawaii Youth Opera Chorus, an organization with which she sang and danced hula for eleven years.
Not limited to the classical concert setting, Tonia has also written for film and stage works. She composed an original song for the 2002 film Those were the Days. In 2008, she collaborated with the lyricist and director to create the theme song for Rising Sun, a musical performed in the Hong Kong Sun Yat-Sen Museum. Both are productions of the well-known entertainment company in Hong Kong, The Spring-Time Group. Tonia's current compositional interests include the reinterpretation of musical memories, reconciliation of tonal source materials in the context of a "personal" atonality, and parallelism between musical and cinematic/architectural structures.
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