BIO | Stevekornicki

Steve Kornicki's concert music is based on musical processes consisting of contrapuntal textures of non-melodic lines and structures built from sustained tones and repeated single note patterns with an underlying tonal or modal harmonic foundation resulting from planned improvisations involving slow motion tone rows and fractal rhythms. His music, no matter how conceptual, always maintains a continuous sense of drama.

Steve was born in 1968 and grew up in and around Philadelphia, PA. His parents were instrumental in his musical development with his father being an amateur guitarist and classical recording enthusiast while his mother sang and played piano. Steve's mother, Ann Marie taught him to read music and play piano at age 9. He first heard experimental and minimalist music at age 12 through WXPN-FM's afternoon new music radio program, "Directions in Music" and from Stanley Kubrick's film soundtracks, "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "The Shining" featuring the music of composers Béla Bartók, Gyorgy Ligeti and Krzysztof Penderecki. These early, formative experiences helped shape his artistic vision.

He studied music composition and music theory from the ages of 14-18 with Jeffrey Mumford (a student of Elliott Carter), guitar performance with William Peters and jazz performance with John Simon at Philadelphia’s Settlement Music School. Additionally, he studied electronic music with Mark Elling Benson, theory with Jerry Nowak and bass performance with Robert Campbell at Bucks County Community College from 1988-1990.

His music has been performed and/or recorded by

~Brevard Symphony Orchestra

~Kyiv Philharmonic

~Ensemble P4

~pianist, Nicolas Horvath

~trumpeter, Mark Sunderland

~Grand Rapids Community College Guitar Ensemble

~New York Miniaturist Ensemble (Juilliard)

~West End String Quartet

~Accessible Contemporary Music

~Rhodes College Orchestra

~Ithaca College Percussion Ensemble

~California State University Long Beach Percussion Ensemble

~University of Central Florida Percussion Ensemble

~percussionists, Dr. David Gerhart, Scotty Horey, Dr. Thad Anderson, Evan Chapman, J.B. Smith and Sean O’Hea

~Chicago Miniaturist Ensemble.

His electro-acoustic music with video includes presentations/installations at

~"Digital Graffiti" (Alys Beach FL, 2013)

~California State University Fullerton’s 2011 New Music Festival

~New American Art Union - BYOTV exhibition (Portland OR, 2008)

~Grand Valley State University's "Freeplay Six, Listening Chamber"

~Unitarian Universalist Church of New York - TRANSreveLATION, an audio-visual concert (Manhattan, 2007)

~West Valley Art Museum (Phoenix, AZ, 2008)

~Sweetwater Center for the Arts (Pittsburgh PA, 2005)

~International Video Art Festival (Tucson AZ 2007).

~Art Space 303 - month-long “Collective Dreaming” exhibition, (Pittsburgh PA, February 2006)

~Dowes on 9th Street - art exhibition (Pittsburgh PA, March 2006)

In September 2013, Kornicki was awarded a "Special Citation of Excellence" by the College Orchestra Directors Association (CODA)'s 2013 Composition Competition for "Fanfare in a Continuum of Gradual Momentum" - a symphonic work inspired by the concepts of self similarity. The Brevard Symphony Orchestra, a professional Florida orchestra premiered the piece in 2015.

"Cycles of Fifths in Lines of Self Similarity", originally a guitar quintet written in 2005 and arranged in 2012 for eleven percussionists, garnered attention from the 2013 premiere performance by Gordon Stout and the Ithaca College percussion ensemble and has since been performed by the University of Central Florida's percussion ensemble under Dr. Thad Anderson. The guitar version of "Cycles of Fifths in Lines of Self Similarity" was featured in the "I Care if You Listen" 2013 Winter mixtape.

The chamber ensemble piece, "72 Tones" was performed at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in New York City along with the premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “First Natural Durations” by the New York Miniaturist Ensemble in 2006. The New York Miniaturist Ensemble also premiered "Tempo Distortion 1" for chamber ensemble as part of Frank Oteri's 21st Century Schizoid Music concert series at the Cornelia Street Cafe in New York City.

“Tempo Distortion 4”, a study for marimba and tape in gradually shifting tempi, has gained significant attention from percussionists with many performances and multiple videos posted on Youtube.

His 2002 orchestral suite"Morning Star Rising" inspired by astronomer and anthropologist Anthony Aveni's book, "Conversing with the Planets" was recorded and released on CD by the Kiev Philharmonic under the late Robert Ian Winstin in 2005 and was broadcast on classical public radio across the U.S. including WQED Pittsburgh, Princeton, NJ (WPRB "Classical Discoveries"), KGNU Denver and Boulder CO, KLCC Eugene, OR, WCMU Michigan, and WTJU, Charlottesville, VA.

His 2005 CD, "Orchestral, Conceptual and Ensemble Music"was favorably reviewed by Frank Oteri (New Music Box article) and received airplay on stations across the U.S. including the electro-acoustic composition "25 X 8" broadcast on NPR's "Hearts of Space" program.

The 2006 piece, "Four Pieces for string quartet" was premiered by the West End String Quartet in 2007 and broadcast on classical WQED, Pittsburgh.

In October 2016 he organized a concert for trumpet and electronics at the Timucua Arts Foundation in Orlando, FL featuring trumpeter Mark Sunderland performing works by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Thad Anderson, Chan Ji Kim, Charles Griffin and himself.

Kornicki has collaborated on multiple pieces for percussion ensemble and solo percussionist/electronics with Dr. David Gerhart at California State University Long Beach. He has also worked with Dr. Thad Anderson at the University of Central Florida who directed the performances of several of Steve's works at various national colleges.

His music is published by Media Press https://mediapressmusic.com/all-composers/kornicki-steve/ and by his own Fragmented View Music.

Since 2001, Steve has been involved in commercial production music and has numerous placement credits in this area spanning U.S. and international television, motion pictures, radio, and advertising including CSI Miami, Jersey Shore, The Simple Life, CBS Sunday Morning, Modern Marvels, Major League Baseball, PGA Golf, Boost Mobile, Barry Levinson's 2008 film, "What Just Happened" (with Robert DeNiro and Bruce Willis) and various programming on Animal Planet, Discovery, History, E!, Bio, Lifetime, MTV, VH1, OWN, MSNBC, CBS, and NBC.

Steve has conducted presentations of his music and concepts at:

~King Center for the Performing Arts (Brevard Symphony Orchestra - Melbourne, FL)

~Timucua Arts Foundation (Orlando, FL)

~California State University Long Beach

~University of Central Florida

~Eastern Florida State College

~Florida Music Teacher's Association 82nd Annual Conference - 2016

Steve's music has been utilized in various dance and theater productions including:

~Life Rites (collaboration with Christina Springer) - City Theater, 1996 (Pittsburgh, PA)

~Bucks County Dance Company, 1994-1995 (several productions in the Philadelphia area)

~Persephone in the Underworld, 1992 (collaboration with Lili White) - Group Motion Theatre, (Philadelphia)

As a performer on guitar, bass guitar and keyboard, Steve has worked at festivals, hotels, corporate events, restaurants, art galleries, churches and private parties. Notable players he has performed and/or recorded with include:

~bassist David Pastorius (nephew of jazz legend, Jaco Pastorius)

~cellist Dave Eggar

~producer/keyboardist Scott Storch

~jazz organist Kyle Koehler

~soprano Maria Pappas

~Flamenco guitarist Don Soledad

~percussionist Kevin Kornicki

~jazz bassist Ron Pirtle

Notable venues Steve has performed at include:

~Philadelphia Academy of Music (home of the Philadelphia Orchestra)

~Carnegie Museum (Pittsburgh, PA)

~Chestnut Cabaret (Philadelphia, PA)

~John and Peter's (New Hope, PA)

~Station Square (Pittsburgh, PA)

~The Greenbrier (White Sulpher Springs, WV)

~Frank Loyd Wright's Fallingwater (Mill Run, PA)

~Hilton hotels (Marina Del Rey, CA / Melbourne Beach, FL / Key Biscayne, FL)

~Costa d' Este by Gloria and Emilio Estefan (Vero Beach, FL)

~Versace Mansion (Miami, FL)

~Vero Beach Museum of Art

~Kimpton Hotel and Spa (Vero Beach, FL)

~Zoo Tampa at Lowry Park (Tampa, FL)

~Market Square (downtown Pittsburgh)

~Walt Disney World Dolphin Resort (Orlando, FL)

Steve has taught over 150 private students from 1986-2009. In 1992-1993, he was artist-in-residence at Stratford Friends School and St. Lucy Day School outside Philadelphia where he conducted presentations on MIDI, computer music and multi-track recording applications.

In 1994-1995 he worked as a musical arranger and keyboardist of children's songs for the Kardon Center for Arts Therapy performing with the children's choir at the prestigious Academy of Music in Philadelphia (home of the Philadelphia Orchestra).

From 1988-1990, he worked as librarian at the Settlement Music School's "Sol Schoenbach Library" curating Schoenbach's large collection of bassoon music and maintaining the school's collections. Sol Schoenbach was the principal bassoonist for the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1937-1957 and appears in Disney's "Fantasia" with Leopold Stokowski. Later he was executive director of Settlement Music School where Steve developed a personal and working relationship with him as a music copyist. (Philadelphia, PA)