Sasha Bogdanowitsch
is a composer, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, actor and dancer, whose
work strives to unite East and West sensibilities by working towards a
unique ‘world’ musical language. His compositional output has ranged
from writing for chamber ensembles to multi-track tapes with live
performance to music for unique ensembles, such as gamelan and early
music groups, to live and recorded music for theater, dance and film.
Sasha
has a Master of Arts from the University of California at Santa Cruz
and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts,
both where he studied composition and world music, integrating the two
into multi-movement, inter-disciplinary performances. These works, such
as ‘An Ocean Walks Behind a Lake’, ‘Atom Turning in the Sun of
Eternity’, ‘Chakra Mundi’ and ‘Akasha’, have focused on the merging of
music with theater, movement, and visuals alongside themes of universal
cycles and creation.
He
has worked extensively as composer and/or performer with the composer
Lou Harrison, Artisan Entertainment, the American Festival of
Microtonal Music, puppeteer and theater director Kathy Foley, New Music
Works, Just Strings, Weave and the gamelans: Son of Lion, Si Aptos, Si
Betty, Sari Raras, Pusaka Sunda and UCSC. Awards have included a BMI
1995 Student Composer Award for his ‘Encompassing’ for four tenor
voices and a Meet the Composer grant with the American Festival for
Microtonal Music.
Sasha
Bogdanowitsch has studied composition with Lou Harrison, David Evan
Jones, Richard Zvonar, Alan Chaplin, Mark McGurty, and Ros Bandt. He
has performed and studied classical North Indian music, Central
Javanese gamelan and Sundanese tembang in their countries of origin and
in the United States.
For the former, he has
studied on voice, bansuri bamboo flute and tabla with Ustad Ali Akbar
Khan,
Salamat Ali Khan, Pandit Pran Nath, Terry Riley, Amiya Dasgupta,
G.S.Sachdev,
Iqbal Singh, Kalyan Chowdury, John Sackett, David Philipson and
Jeffery
Whittier. For the latter, he has studied with Djoko Walujo, Nyoman
Wenten,
Undang Sumarna, Lou Harrison, Sumarsam, I.M. Harjito, Burhan Sukarma,
Rukruk
Rukmana, Tatang Rukmana, and Yayah Dachlan.
Sasha has completed two
television film scores, “The Burkittsville 7” and “Shadow of the Blair
Witch,” for Artisan Entertainment and a film score for ‘Tea
Time,’ an
independent film by Jay Bogdanowitsch.
He is currently
teaching world music courses at University
of New Haven and performing solo
and with co-composer/performer, Darryl Gregory, in their
‘avant-world’
ensemble, The SaReel Project. Sasha
currently lives in Middletown,
Connecticut
with his Wife, and his two sons, Tycho (2 years old) and Skylar (1
month old).
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