MUSIC

CANTARE Houston presents Introducing Ola Gjeilo, Saturday, May 7, 7:30 p.m. in the Dunham Theater, Morris Cultural Arts Center, Houston Baptist University.

Manhattan-based Norwegian composer and pianist Ola Gjeilo's name and music are seemingly everywhere - on concert programs, on contest lists, choral websites, publisher catalogues, etc. This May, experience Ola Gjeilo in person, in concert with CANTARE and community friends.

Following a week's residency in which he will share music-making with singers throughout the community, the culminating festival concert will feature a newly-commissioned world premiere and performances of several of his other favorites.

The music of Manhattan-based Norwegian composer and pianist Ola Gjeilo (b. 1978) has been performed and recorded in more than 30 countries worldwide in venues such as New York’s Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall, Los Angeles’ Disney Hall, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, The Arsht Center in Miami, Washington DC’s Kennedy Center and National Gallery, as well as the Copenhagen and Oslo Opera Houses. His music has been featured on PBS and radio stations across the US.

’09-’10 season Composer-in-Residence for the 2008 and 2009 Grammy winning Phoenix Chorale, Gjeilo (pronounced Yay-lo) has been commissioned by several notable artists and organizations, such as Barbara Bonney, Solveig Kringelborn, Philip Brunelle, the Edvard Grieg Society, St. Olaf College, Luther College, Choral Arts Ensemble, Taipei Male Choir, Oslo Church Music Festival, and the ACDA Women’s Choir Concortium. His choral music has also been performed by elite choirs such as the Kansas City Chorale, Conspirare, World Youth Choir, VocalEssence, BYU Singers, and the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation’s Radiokören.

Ola’s debut piano CD, Stone Rose, featuring his own lyrical pieces in the crossroads between classical, jazz and popular music, was released in 2007 by the multiple Grammy nominated label 2L and is available on amazon.com and iTunes.

After studying for his Bachelor’s Degree at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, the Royal College of Music in London and the Juilliard School in New York, he completed his Master’s Degree in composition at Juilliard in 2006.