Biography and Curriculum Vitae
2024 Gustav Mahler Composition Prize Recognition Award
2024 Austrian State Scholarship in Composition
2020 Forum Wallis Prize
2020 City of Graz Music Promotion Prize
Alyssa is fascinated with the architecture of music, both spatially and temporally. She composes works which explore extremes in time and space, using rigid proportions to generate forms in acoustic works and exploring the unpredictable duration and lack of control in gamified works. This is closely tied to her compositional style, which is concerned with a delicate balance between elements of functional form and elements of pure aesthetic purpose. As much structure as possible, as many ornaments as necessary (and vice versa). She believes in a careful balance between craft and emotion in her music. Her passions include the study of ancient cultures and Stargate SG-1, both of which have influenced her life path and compositional aesthetic.
She studied composition in the United States with Robert Kyr, David Crumb, and Jeffrey Stolet, in Canada with Robert Pritchard, Keith Hamel, and David Eagle, and in Graz, Austria with Marko Ciciliani and Klaus Lang. Alyssa’s work and research are performed worldwide at various concerts and festivals such as Wien Modern, Ars Electronica Linz, Forum Wallis, ICMC, EMS, Impuls, Darmstadt Summer Courses, Musikprotokoll, Tonraum21, ComposIt, Mirkofest Helsinki, Microtonal Festival Prague, and many others. She was selected for participation at many academies and workshops such as WasteLAnd Academy (2019), CrossROADS Festival (2019), Kalv Festival Academy (2020), and reMusik.org (2021). She was also selected for performance at the Gamified Audiovisual Performance and Performance Practice (Gappp) Symposium 2019. Alyssa is a founding member of the Graz facere collective, which presents every year concerts in various formats, and is a current member of the Graz collective Die Andere Saite. Her scores are published by Babel Scores and Verlag Zeitschleife.
Education
2024- Doctoral studies (artistic) in composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz with Annesley Black and Christian Utz
2017-2021 Studies in Composition-Music Theatre at University of Music and Performing Arts Graz with Klaus Lang, with distinction (thesis – These Roads Will Never End: Opening temporal windows to sonic dimensions)
2017-2021 Studies in Computer Music at University of Music and Performing Arts Graz with Marko Ciciliani (thesis – The missing piece: boredom and “non-games” in ludified audivisual composition)
2013-2017 Doctoral studies in Composition/Computermusic at the University of Calgary with David Eagle (dissertation: The Woman and the Lyre)
2011-2013 Studies in Composition at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada) with Keith Hamel and Bob Pritchard
2008-2010 Studies in Music Technology and Composition at the University of Oregon (Eugene, OR, USA) with Jeffrey Stolet, Robert Kyr, and David Crumb
Workshops and Residencies
Participation in and Premieres at Darmstadt International Summer Courses (2016, 2018), Impuls Festival Academy, Graz, Austria, (2017, 2019), Oregon Bach Festival Composers’ Symposium, Eugene, Oregon, USA (2016), ChampdAction/LabO, Antwerp, Belgium (2020)
Selected fellow at ComposIT festival, Rieti, Italy (2014), WasteLAnd Summer Academy, Los Angeles, California (2019), Crossroads New Music Festival, Salzburg, Austria (2019), Kalv Festival Academy, Kalv, Sweden (2020), reMusik.org Festival Academy, St. Petersburg, Russia (2021), Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik (2022)
Artistic Activity
2011-present, work as freelance composer
Performances at Wien Modern (Austria), Ars Electronica Linz (Austria), Forum Wallis (Switzerland), International Computer Music Conference (Greece, South Korea), Impuls (Austria), Darmstadt Summer Courses (Germany), Musikprotokoll Graz (Austria), Tonraum21 (Austria), ComposIt (Italy), Mirkofest Helsinki (Finland), Microtonal Festival Prague (Czech Republic), Espacios Sonoros (Argentina), Audio Mostly (Austria), New Music Edmonton (Canada), Riverrun Festival (France), Tokyo to New York (USA/Japan), WasteLAnd (USA), ESC Graz (Austria), Musica Viva Festival (Portugal), and various others, including self organized concert series and online performances
Collaborations with performers such as Kerstin Petersen, Ensemble Zeitfluss, Aleksey Vylegzhanin, Tea Kulaš, Helena Sorokina, Alena Kiszter, Flirty Horse, Thomas Piercy, Miyama McQueen-Tokita, Lixue-Lin Seidler, Heather Ryall, Ensemble for New Music Tallinn, sféra ensemble, Jonathan Heilbron, Rebecca Lane, Erik Drescher, Szilárd Benes, UltraViolet Ensemble, Arditti Quartet, Peyee Chen, Kymatic Ensemble, Ghost Ensemble, WasteLAnd Ensemble, airborne extended, Mirko Jevtovic, Carla Rees, Gavin Stewart, Felicita Brusoni, Maurice Quartet, Vôjtech Šembera, and many others.
Teaching Experience
Visiting University Instructor, Video Game Music, University of Oregon (2012-2013), University of Calgary (2016), Portland Community College, Portland, Oregon (2017)
Teaching Fellow, University of Calgary (2013-2017), Electroacoustic Music and Sonic Arts, Post-tonal theory
Teaching Fellow, University of British Columbia (2011-2013), Computer Music and Music Technology
Professional activity
2025-present, senior scientist, University of Musik and Performing Arts Vienna
2022-present, co-founder and president, Zeitschleife Verein
2022, co-developer, prototyping project with support of Kunsuniversität Graz
2021-present, co-founder and artistic researcher, Organon: Contemporary Renaissance of Organ Music
2021-present, founder and owner, Verlag Zeitschleife
2020-present, member of Die Andere Saite, Graz, Austria
2017-present, founder and member of facere collective, Graz, Austria
2017, Production Assistant for Harmonic Laboratory, Eugene, Oregon, USA
2014, Audiovisual Assistant, Canadian New Music Network Documentation Team
2012, Programmer, Music Technology Teaching Resources (MuTTeR) project
Awards
2024 Special recognition award, Gustav Mahler Kompositionspreis
2024 Staatsstipendium Komposition, Bundeskanzleramt Österreich
2023 Kompoistionsforderung, SKE-fonds
2022 Drittmittelprojekt, Prototypenförderung, Kunstuniversität Graz
2022 Projektförderung, Das Land Steiermark
2022 Projektförderung, Kulturamt der Stadt Graz
2021, 2022 Kompoistionstipendium, Bundeskanzleramt, Österreich
2020 Musikförderungspreis der Stadt Graz
2020 Forum Wallis Selection
2017 Transformative Talent Grant
2017, 2014-15 Eyes High International Doctoral Scholarship
2015 Chancellor’s Challenge Graduate Scholarship
2014 Elsie Mary Bell Graduate Scholarship in Music