DCO 30 – Katia Tiutiunnik: Dumuzi, Priest and King
DCO 30
Katia Tiutiunnik
Dumuzi, Priest and King
DCO 30
Dumuzi, Priest and King
Katia Tiutiunnik (born March 19, 1967, in Sydney, Australia) is a composer and scholar who has studied several languages as an adjunct to her research. She is of Ukrainian, Russian and Irish descent.
Tiutiunnik was the first Australian composer to be appointed visiting scholar at Columbia University, New York. She was also the first Australian to complete a residency at Charles Morrow Productions, New York, where she composed a work for three-dimensional SoundCube, presented in Cologne, in November 2005. Most recently, she was a Senior Lecturer in Composition at the Faculty of Music, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia, from March 2012 until April 2016 and an Honorary Research Associate at Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the University of Sydney, from June 2010 until June 2016. In August 2016, Tiutiunnik was appointed Professor of Music at Sias University, Xinzheng, Henan Province, China where she worked until embarking on a privately sponsored sabbatical in South East Asia on November 20 2019. Tiutiunnik currently divides her time between Central America and Mexico.
Tiutiunnik has been awarded numerous international travel grants, commissions and other sponsorship from the government and private sectors.
Tiutiunnik earned her PhD from the Australian National University and was awarded the highest Italian postgraduate diploma from the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome, where she studied with Franco Donatoni. She obtained her BMus from Sydney Conservatorium, where she was awarded all three of their composition prizes. In December 2009, Tiutiunnik's PhD dissertation was published and released internationally.
Besides Franco Donatoni, Tiutiunnik's former composition teachers include Michael Smetanin, Larry Sitsky, Gillian Whitehead, Bozidar Kos and Richard Toop.
In March 2007, Tiutiunnik was invited to Saint Petersburg as part of festivities held in celebration of two hundred years of business relations between Australia and Russia. Prominent Russian musicians, including the Rimsky-Korsakov Quartet of Saint Petersburg and pianist Anna Shpagina, performed Tiutiunnik's works in a concert held in the Palace of the Saint Petersburg Composers' Society, as part of those festivities (Tiutiunnik performed the viola during the concert). Tiutiunnik also lectured at the Saint-Petersburg Conservatory of Music and was interviewed by Radio Maria. Tiutiunnik's travel to this event was funded by a sponsor and her concert and reception were sponsored by the Australian Embassy in Moscow, the Honorary Australian Consul in Saint Petersburg and others.
Tiutiunnik's music has been performed in Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan (including a historical performance of a symphonic poem dedicated to Queen Noor of Jordan, in September 1999 as part of the 28th General Assembly of the International Music Council), Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Panama, Poland, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Singapore, Switzerland, Thailand the UK and the USA. Tiutiunnik has lectured worldwide and her works are held in numerous international libraries, including the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, Princeton University Library, Columbia University Library, Stanford University Library, the New York Public Library and many others.
Tiutiunnik's compositions have also been featured in theatrical productions at the Ensemble Theatre (Sydney, Australia), La Mamma Theatre (Melbourne, Australia), London (United Kingdom), Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Off Off Broadway (New York City) and the Bronx (New York).
Presentations on Tiutiunnik's music have been given by Professor James Bicigo (of the University of Alaska Fairbanks), in Australia and the USA. Tiutiunnik's music has also been used for theatrical productions in Australia, the UK and the USA. Commercial CD recordings of her work include those by internationally renowned Australian flautist, Laura Chislett, distinguished Australian pianist, Stephanie McCallum, innovative Australian ensemble, Sideband, and Borealis Brass of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. 40 live and studio recordings of her works are commercially published by Alexander Street Press, as are over 35 of her scores. Other publishers include TauKay Edizioni Musicali (TEM), Italy, and Charles Morrow Productions.
In December 2009, the historic 'Borealis in Australis' tour featured over ten Australian performances of Tiutiunnik's compositions, by Borealis Brass of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Borealis Brass also completed a historic tour of Tanjung Malim, Shah Alam and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, as a guest of the Faculty of Music, Universiti Teknologi MARA,Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris UPSI) and Yamaha, Malaysia.
Tiutiunnik's music continues to be broadcast internationally and performed by numerous international artists, including Iwona Glinka, Bridges Collective, Elizabeth Reid, Roberto Fabbriciani, Vilma Campitelli, University of Teramo Flute Ensemble, Flutopia Flute Orchestra, Luis Casal, Emille Blondel, Bridges Collective, Pemi Paull, Merietta Oviatt, Giovanni Pattavina, Nathan Fischer, Alice Bennett, Laila Engle, Laura Chislett, Ross James Carey, Shaowen Tan, Chiara Dolcini, Beatrice Petrocchi, Sideband, Arya BastaninEzhad, Brad Gill, Jane Bishop, John Sharpley, Akiko Otao, Monica Moroni, Chiara Dolcini, Lachlan Dent, Kalin Yong, Roger Vigulf, the Arcko Symphonic Ensemble and others.
From September 2016 to November 2019, Tiutiunnik was was a violist in the Sias University Symphony Orchestra, Xinzheng, Henan Province, China and she also played the viola for a number of years in the Australian National University Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, as well as in the Sydney Youth Orchestra. Her most important viola teacher was the celebrated Australian violinist/violist, Tor Fromyhr. She has performed as a viola soloist in the Palace of the Saint-Petersburg Composers' Society, Saint-Petersburg, Russia; St. Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney; LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore; Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre, Malaysia; UPSI, Malaysia; the Russian Centre for Science and Culture, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; the Princess Galyani Vadhana Institute of Music, Bangkok, Thailand; International House, New York, USA; Sias University, Xinzheng, Henan Province, China and in other international venues. As an erhu player, Tiutiunnik performed with the Sias University Chinese Traditional Orchestra from February 2017 to November 2019 and she has also given solo recitals on the erhu at the 2019 China-ASEAN Music Festival, Nanning, Guangxi Province, China; at the Russian Centre for Science and Culture, Kuala Lumpur; at Sias University, Xinzheng, Henan Province, China and Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, China.
On March 4, 2020, Katia Tiutiunnik's flute and piano duo, The Quickening, performed by renowned Australian musicians, Laura Chislett (flute) and Stephanie McCallum (piano), was released on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ABC Classics album, Women of Note: A Century of Australian Composers Volume 2.
Composers in the crosshairs of our attention
"Creativity is an unconscious act of insanity, in a burst of which the truth is born. No matter how beautiful or disgusting it may seem to people far from madness, its value is beyond doubt, both for the author and for those able to sense its invisible beauty. After all, gratitude for endless trials and suffering brings joy and blissful emptiness… Being shocked by music is about pain turning into beauty and getting under your skin, taking away your breath; about everything stopping to move. I want to be scratched inside by sound and experience the fleeting, invisible beauty." - Maxim Shalygin