Music
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.
Piano Improvisations:
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.
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
Instruments
Piano, vibraphone, mallet percussion, auxiliary percussion, hand drumming, organ
Composition Style
Current foci on: improvisational meditations on solo acoustic piano, primarily textural in nature, commonly utilizing: regularly symmetrical tritonality (hexatonic or more), regularly symmetrical octatonic scales (and a hexatonic variant), Phrygian dominant scales, Mixolydian, whole tone, her own concept of "non-dodecaphony," 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, Akara, György Ligeti, Olivier Messiaen, Gustav Holst, Dmitri Shoshtakovich, Igor Stravinsky, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Gabriel Fauré, Sergei Prokofiev, George Gershwin, Bela Bartok, Modest Mussorgsky, Jerry Goldsmith, and Nobuo Uematsu.
Performances
June 21, 2017 - Collaborative improvisation (acoustic piano) with Thollem & Bob Bucko Jr. at Monks in Dubuque, IA
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 2003 - "Rhapsody in Blue" by George Gershwin, Canada tour
with the Central College Symphonic Wind Ensemble at Seattle and Vancouver area schools
May 2003 - "Piano Trio" (piano) and "Mode Thirteen" (vibraphone) by Ora Uzel at Central College, Pella, Iowa
March 2003 - "Rhapsody in Blue" by George Gershwin, Concerto-Aria competition winners
with the Symphonic Wind Ensemble at Central College, Pella, Iowa and on tour in Seattle/Vancouver areas.
October 2002 - "London Mosaic" (vibraphone) 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
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