Alexina Louie
Alexina Diane Louie
Alexina Diane Louie, composer, pianist, teacher (b at Vancouver 30 July 1949). Alexina Louie studied music history at the University of British Columbia and composition at the University of California at San Diego with Robert Erickson and Pauline Oliveros.
Watch pianist Pianist Yoomi Kim perform the Alexina Louie composition "Warrior" from "Scenes from a Jade Terrace." From YouTube.
Louie's music is a highly personal blend of both Asian and Western influences. Deeply spiritual in emotional content, her compositions enjoy great popularity with the concert-going public. Significant works include O Magnum Mysterium: In Memoriam Glenn Gould (1982), Songs of Paradise (1983) and Music for Heaven and Earth (1990).
Typical of her work is her 1989 composition Winter Music, which was commissioned by the Vancouver New Music Ensemble. Roughly 17 minutes in duration, this chamber concerto for viola and 11 instruments is divided into three movements entitled "Wave's Edge,""In the Night," and "Winter Wind." Despite the evocative names, the composition remains a piece of "absolute" rather than "programmatic" music. Employing Chinese references such as a bull roar, large gong, wood block and crotales (tuned to the harmonics of the soloist), it is an emotional tour de force - by turns lyrical, colourful and virtuosic.
Resident in Toronto since 1980, a recipient of the Order of Ontario and two-time Juno winner, Alexina Louie won the Jules Leger Prize for Nightfall in 1999. She has co-written with Alex Pauk film and TV scores, including Don McKellar's Last Night (winner at the Cannes Film Festival 1998), Jeremy Podeswa's feature film The Five Senses (1999), Podeswa's TV movie After the Harvest (2001), Rhombus Media's docudrama Ravel's Brain (2001), and Rhombus Media's feature film Perfect Pie (2002). Being their composer-in-residence from 1996 to 2002, the CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY gave a concert premiere of Louie's full-length opera The Scarlet Princess, based on a seventeenth-century Kabuki play with libretto by David Henry Hwang in April 2002. Her five-minute tragic opera buffa Toothpaste is available as an interactive DVD on the Internet at toothpastetv.com after being premiered in 2002 by the ESPRIT ORCHESTRA. In 2002, Louie along with Denys BOULIANE and Gary KULESHA, was appointed as resident composer over the next five years with the National Arts Centre (NAC) Orchestra.
In 2002 she received the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal. She has won the SOCAN Jan V. Matycek Concert Music Award as the most frequently performed Canadian concert composer three times (1990, 1992, 2003) since the award's initiation in 1990. Her String Quartet No. 2 was premiered in 2003 at the Great Composers Festival in Ottawa. In 2004 the NAC Orchestra premiered and took on tour her orchestral work Bringing the Tiger Down from the Mountain II. With librettos by Don Redican, Louie completed Burnt Toast (2002), eight comedic mini-operas for television. The topic of each mini-opera is a different aspect of romantic love: Attraction, Connection, Commitment, Marriage, Consummation, Perseverance, Disintegration and Starting Over. In these, Louie draws on many styles of music and uses quotations from Mozart, and Wagner. In 2002, Louie received The Louis Applebaum Composition Award for excellence in composing for television and film.
In 1996 Louie received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Calgary, the Order of Ontario in 2001, and became an Officer of the ORDER OF CANADA (2005), as well as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2006. On 22 February 2006, the National Arts Centre Orchestra premiered her Infinite Sky With Birds, which has subsequently received many tour performances in 2007 and 2008. During the inaugural season of Toronto's Four Seasons Centre, Louie's ballet score Wolf's Court with choreography by Matjash Mrowzewski was performed by the NATIONAL BALLET OF CANADA, in June 2007, the first major Canadian composition to be presented there.
Louie, Alexina
The opening of Louie's "Procession of Celestial Deities" was influenced by Japanese Gagaku court music (courtesy CBC). The photo is courtesy of the composer.
Author ALAN HORGAN Revised: ELAINE KEILLOR
Links to Other Sites
Alexina Louie
A profile of highly acclaimed classical composer Alexina Louie. From the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec.
Vancouver New Music Society
The latest news and event calendar for the innovative Vancouver New Music Society.
Alexina Louie looks outdoors for internal inspiration
A news story on acclaimed composer Alexina Louie and her multidimensional music compositions. From thestar.com.
Alexina Louie: Warrior
Watch pianist Pianist Yoomi Kim perform the Alexina Louie composition "Warrior" from "Scenes from a Jade Terrace." From YouTube.
Alexina Louie: Fastforward
Watch a video of pianist Dorel Golan performing the Alexina Louie composition "Fastforward." From YouTube.
Biography of Alexina Louie, O.C.
A biography of Alexina Louie, O.C., from the website for the National Arts Centre.
NACmusicbox.ca
The acclaimed National Arts Centre Orchestra has made available hundreds of online audio clips from its recordings that feature works by noteworthy Canadian and international composers. First click on the name of a composer on the right side menu. Then click on the "Play" arrow across from "Read Concert Program Notes" to hear a specific recording. Explore the website for more information about the orchestra and each recording. See also biographies of the composers and the interactive Timeline, which depicts historical milestones in classical music. From artsalive.ca and the Virtual Museum of Canada.
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