- Michael Gatonska studied music composition with Krzystof Penderecki, Marek Stachowski, and Zibigniew Bujarski at the Academy of Music in Krakow, Poland, and with Elias Tanenbaum at the Manhattan School of Music.
His music has been performed by the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, the Hartford Symphony, the Pacific Symphony, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Talea Ensemble, the New York Miniaturist Ensemble, string quartet DAFO, and at the Krakow International Composers Festival, the Mosaico Music Festival (Poland), the Teagu Festival of Contemporary Music (South Korea), the Festival Internacional de Musica Contemporanea (Bogota, Colombia), the CSN New Music Festival (Nevada), the New Britain Museum of American Art, and twice he has participated in the Minnesota Orchestra Reading Sessions & Composer Institute. He has received several awards for his compositions, including fellowship and grant awards from the Civitella Ranieri Center, the Kosciuszko Foundation, ASCAP, the American Music Center, Meet the Composer, the American Composers Forum, the Roberts Foundation, the Paul Underwood/ ACO Commission, the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, and he is a MacDowell Colony Fellow. He has composed solo and chamber music for the pianist/performer Kathleen Supove, the E-cellist Jeffrey Krieger, and for the flautist Paul Lustig Dunkel.
- A native of New Jersey, David Handler is a composer of acoustic and electronic musics. His work has been characterized by its use of familiar, often tonal “relics” within a narrative structure and polytonal language that seek to explore the notions of incongruity and deconstruction.
Recent performances include a Composer Portrait curated by Richard Guerin of Phillip Glass’ Orange Mountain Music, as well as thepremiere of Smile by The Ossia Symphony. Other orchestral premiers include The Diving Bell Sketches by The Manhattan Symphony in 2004 and an orchestral commission by Sinfonia Quebec under the direction of Irenee Lemieux in 2001.
Upcoming projects include a collaboration with The Hilliard Ensemble and members of internationally acclaimed Icelandic ambient ensemble Sigur Ros. The performance, presented by Lincoln Center, will feature multiple commissioned works by Mr. Handler. Continuallyinterested in the relationship of sound to the moving image, David is currently working on a film project titled “Circles in the Desert”.
As an avid chamber musician, Mr. Handler performs regularly with prominent instrumentalists and with his group “?”.
David is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music where he studied composition with J. Mark Stambaugh and Nils Vigeland, violin and viola with Isaac Malkin and conducting with David Gilbert. As composer, Mr. Handler has participated in and had his music featured in the master classes of Julia Wolf, Charles Wuorinen, Ned Rorem and Steve Reich. As performer, Mr. Handler has participated in master classes given by Pinchas Zuckerman, Ani Kavafian, The Emerson String Quartet, The Julliard String Quartet and has performed under the baton of Zdenek Macal, Kurt Masur, and Jerzy Semkov.
Ever interested in the relevance of classical and avant music within the popular palette, David founded Le Poisson Rouge in 2008, heralded by The New York Times as “the coolest place to hear contemporary music in New York”, The New Yorker as “a brave experiment, from which mainstream organizations have much to learn”, and “a downright musical marvel” by The Los Angeles Times.
David currently resides in Brooklyn.
