Lois V. Vierk

Born August 1951, Lansing, Illinois. American composer of a wide variety of stage and chamber works for ensembles small and large, usual and unusual. She received her BA (major in piano and ethnomusicology) from UCLA in 1974, then studied composition at the California Institute of the Arts with Mel Powell, Leonard Stein and Morton Subotnick, receiving her MFA in 1978. For ten years, she studied gagaku (Japanese court music) with Suenobu Togi in Los Angeles, and for two years, in Tokyo with Sukeyasu Shiba, the lead ryuteki flautist of the Imperial Court Orchestra. Lois V. Vierk has spent most of her career in New York City. Her music has achieved an impressive international reputation, and has been performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Kronos Quartet, electric guitarists Seth Josel and David Seidel, cellist Ted Mook, the Paul Dresher Ensemble, the Reigakusha Ensemble of Tokyo, and the Relâche Ensemble, among others. Among the many performers who have commissioned Ms. Vierk are cellist Maya Beiser, accordionist Guy Klucevsek, pianists Ursula Oppens, Frederic Rzewski, Aki Takahashi and Margaret Leng Tan and percussionist Steven Schick. The Bang on a Can Festival, Ensemble Modern, l'Art pour l'Art, Music from Japan and the Paul Dresher Ensemble have also commissioned works from her. Co-creations with tap dance choreographer Anita Feldman have been commissioned by the American Dance Festival, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Meet the Composer and others. Her music has been performed at major venues worldwide, including the Adelaide Festival, Carnegie Hall, Darmstadt, the Edmonton New Music Festival, Glasgow, the Huddersfield Festival, Lincoln Center, Radio Bremen, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival and the Suntory Festival Tokyo.