Music

Ora Uzel is a pianist and composer currently specializing in improvisational meditations on acoustic piano. Her soundscapes foster immersive transcendent experiences. While some music can guide you to a depth of meditation bordering on sleep-like qualities of relaxation and serenity, other works innovate musically theoretical horizons into fiery expressions of sonic ecstasy. Whatever the character of the music, Ora's improvisational works create unique intimate and inimitable experiences between her and the audience.

Her styles mix Slavic/Russian and Eastern influences with Impressionist, late-Romantic, post-Romantic, Texturalist, Minimalist, Ambient and other music stylings creating saturated sonic landscapes.

Ora creates compositions through initial "sketches" or with notes taken at random, and then improvises from there. Sometimes no sketch at all is intended until Ora begins to play. Even she can't be certain what will arise during a performance. Even mistakes are allowed, which can morph into new discoveries of sound. No two performances are identical.

Listen to her music:

Ora's most recent performance was with Benjamin Drury, trumpet and Bob Bucko, guitar including "Thoughts-Before-Last" (1915) from "Texts Not to be Read Aloud" by Erik Satie on April 21, 2026. Concert. Program. For further performances, see the list further below.

Check out her posts on Patreon.com (free for all, donate what you will): patreon.com/OraBorealis. Your Patreon and direct donations are Ora's only way of receiving compensation for her musical gifts. You wouldn't ask a dentist to perform for free!

For her most recent piano improvisations, go to her Google Drive at: is.gd/orauzelmusic.

For older piano improvisations and experiments in electronic music, check out her Soundcloud page.

Dream Hall: an experiment with written text about a dream with music in the background.

Education

B.A. Music - Central College, Pella, Iowa - magna cum laude with honors, studied abroad (London, England, Sep-Dec 2001)

M.M. Composition - DePaul University School of Music, Chicago, Illinois - with distinction and symphonic thesis: Polyheterodyne Machinamenta (PhdMm) for symphony, micropolyphonic sound masses in canonic motion morphing from dodecaphonic to octatonic tonality (a musical slight middle finger to high academic atonal Serial dodecaphony)

Instruments

Piano, vibraphone, mallet percussion, auxiliary percussion, hand drumming, organ

Composition Style

Current foci on: improvisational meditations on acoustic piano, primarily textural in nature, commonly utilizing: regularly symmetrical tritonality (hexatonic or more), regularly symmetrical octatonic scales (and other variants), Phrygian dominant scales, modal scales, whole tone, her own concept of "non-dodecaphony," quasitonal peridodecaphony, and other techniques. Style influences include: Minimalism, improvisation, meditation music, visual art's Abstract Expressionism, Peridadaism, late-Romanticism, post-Romanticism, Impressionism, Symbolism, micropolyphony, sound masses, Texturalism, and Visionary Art.

Improvisation

Since 2014, Ora returned to developing improvisational skills at the piano, composing in real time without paper or computer. On breaks during the day at her day job, she plays for tourists, parishoners, and for herself at the piano, continuing to explore new areas of compositional interest.

Influences/Preferences

Arvo Pärt, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Alexander Scriabin, Anoushka Shankar, Steve Reich, Danny Elfman, Phillip Glass, Enya, Björk, O.T.T., Blue Stone, Bluetech, Antonin Dvořak, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, John Cage, Albéric Magnard, Wardruna, Dixon's Violin, Gift Culture, Dead Can Dance, Värttinä, György Ligeti, Olivier Messiaen, Gustav Holst, Dmitri Shoshtakovich, Igor Stravinsky, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Gabriel Fauré, Sergei Prokofiev, Frank Zappa, George Gershwin, Bela Bartok, Wendy Carlos, Modest Mussorgsky, Jerry Goldsmith, Nobuo Uematsu, and others.

Performances

April 21, 2026 - Improvisational Concert (acoustic piano) with Ben Drury (trumpet) and Bob Bucko (amplified guitar) at St. Luke's United Methodist Church, Dubuque, Iowa
October 21, 2025 - Improvisational Concert (acoustic piano) with Ben Drury (trumpet) at St. Luke's United Methodist Church, Dubuque, Iowa
April 22, 2025 - Improvisational Concert (solo acoustic piano) at St. Luke's United Methodist Church, Dubuque, Iowa
June 21, 2017 - Collaborative improvisation (acoustic piano) with Thollem & Bob Bucko Jr. at Monks in Dubuque, Iowa
September 12, 2016 - Improvisational Concert (solo acoustic piano) at Central College, Pella, Iowa
May 2015 - Improvisational meditation (solo acoustic piano) at open mic nights at the Acorn Theater, Three Oaks, Michigan
May 2005 - "Synaptic Wastes" by Ora Uzel (for solo acoustic piano), performed at DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois
November 2005 - "Peace" by Ora Uzel (improvisatory framework for solo acoustic piano), performed at Roosevelt University, Chicago, Illinois
May 2003 - "Mode Thirteen" by Ora Uzel (for vibraphone and flute), performed at DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois
May 2003 - "Rhapsody in Blue" by George Gershwin (piano concerto), Canada tour, with the Central College Symphonic Wind Ensemble at Seattle and Vancouver area schools
May 2003 - "Piano Trio" (piano, violin, cello) and "Mode Thirteen" (vibraphone, flute) by Ora Uzel at Central College, Pella, Iowa
March 2003 - "Rhapsody in Blue" by George Gershwin (piano concerto), Concerto-Aria competition winners, with the Symphonic Wind Ensemble at Central College, Pella, Iowa
October 2002 - "London Mosaic" (vibraphone and wind ensemble) by Ora Uzel with the Symphonic Wind Ensemble at Central College, Pella, Iowa

Electronic Works:

- Auroral Whispers: Ambient with a mysterious atmosphere
- There Is Always Hope: Relaxation, easy listening, and healing
- UBuFWa: Downtempo dance music, alien and exotic
- Amongst the Tula: Ambient, mystic, relaxation; an extra-terrestrial crystalline forest
- Autumnal Emanations: Chill music, aeolian creatures floating through an autumn breeze
- Ripples: Ambient/chill music, positive harmonic tone set for immersive tranquil meditation
- Mysticle: Ambient with hiphop rhythm
- Rothkos: Two works of unchanging sound based on concepts of abstract expressionism. Instead of the work changing you over time (normal music), you change these over time because of how the psychology of musical experience functions.

See Ora Borealis's Soundcloud page for various electronic creations.

Classical & Academic Works

- "Winter Sunrise" for improvisatory solo piano; 3-10 minutes; 2011; cell notation, quintal and quartal harmonies
- "Polyheterodyne Machinamenta" for full orchestra; 5 minutes; 2006; Master's Thesis on micropolyphony, texturalism, and deconstructing dodecaphony
- "Peace" for improvisatory solo piano; 5-10 minutes; 2005; instructions only score, quintal harmony
- "Mandala of the Elements" electroacoustic; 10 minutes; 2004; Symbolism
- "Pop Parody" for solo piano; 4 minutes; 2004; experimental Dadaism: just the chords of a fictional pop song
- "Words" for soprano and piano; 4 minutes; 2003; piano pointallism, Expressionism, and extended techniques for voice
- "Synaptic Wastes" for solo piano; 6 minutes; 2003; abstract Expressionism focusing on the sonic decay of the acoustic piano, non-rhythmic with a distant ephemeral texture
- "Mode Thirteen" for vibraphone and flute; 8 minutes; 2000, 2003 (revised); Messiaen-like locrian mode, 11/8 time signature, and arch form
- "Impromptu in C" for improvisatory solo piano; 4 minutes; 2003; non-Western blues stylings
- "Piano Trio" for piano, violin and cello; 18 minutes; 2003; Senior Honors Project with Shoshtakovich, Impressionist, and Expressionist flavors
- "Scherzo" for symphonic wind ensemble; 30 seconds; 2002; Danny Elfman inspired joke, ridiculously brief and bombastic
- "Circus Macabre" for woodwind quintet (flute, clarinet, oboe, bass clarinet, french horn); 6 minutes; 2002; inspired by Ray Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way Comes" and the music of Danny Elfman
- "London Mosaic" for symphonic wind ensemble; 3 minutes; 2002; Jazz-styled romp through rush hour in London, influenced by Gershwin

Teaching

Music Philosophy, Composition, Theory, History, Appreciation, and Piano Performance

Special Areas of Interest/Curiosity

Visionary music, sacred electronic dance music, non-Western sacred music in American counterculture and fringe subcultures, "shamanic" music, Minimalism and ambient music, post-Romantic tonal early 20th Century music, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, Dvorak in America, American Musicology, film music, pop music, indigenous music, psychoacoustics, physioacoustics

Piano Performance

Classical solo and concerto works including:

- Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," performed as winner of the Central College Concerto-Aria Competition 2003 and performed on tour in Canada with the Central College Symphonic Wind Ensemble
- Rachmaninoff's "Piano Concerto No. 2," not completed, but memorized first movement in 2001
- Bartok's "Allegro Barbaro," Gershwin's "Prelude I" and "Prelude II," Rachmaninoff's "Polichinelle," and others...

Percussion

Vibraphone, mallet instruments, auxiliary concert percussion, timpani, shamanic drumming, djembe, steel drums, conga, world percussion, body percussion, and found objects.

Additional Musical Experience:

- Colts Drum & Bugle Corps, Front Ensemble: 1999, 2000, & 2001 (DCI World Championship Finalists 1999, 2001)
- Central College Symphonic Wind Ensemble: 1999-2003
- Piano lessons: 1991-2003
- Percussion lessons and band involvement: 1990-2003
- Iowa Ambassadors of Music Europe Tour: 1998
- Central College Flying Pans Steel Drum Ensemble: 2001-2002
- Choir Piano Accompaniment: 2002
- Choir: 1989-1991

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