Janice Giteck

Professor

Composition

jgiteck@cornish.edu

Janice Giteck is a composer of music for concert, multimedia, dance and theater. She has scored six award–winning films including Emiko Omori’s Rabbit in the Moon, Johnny Simon’s Daddy and Pappa, Katie Jenning’s Teachings of the Tree People, and three films by Pat Ferrero: Hopi, Songs of the Fourth World, Hearts and Hands, and Yield to Total Elation, several of these broadcast on the PBS series American Experience, POV, and Independent Lens.

Recent concert pieces include Ishi for the Seattle Chamber Players, She Who Dances Through the Sky, for a cappella choir, In a Camel’s Ear for nine flutes, Snow Mandala and Tara’s Love Will Melt the Sword for solo piano, and Where Can You Live Safely Then? In Surrender for string quartet.

From 1998 to 2001 Giteck was awarded a Meet The Composer residency that allowed her to compose two major works: Tikkun–Mending for John Duykers, tenor and the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra; and Navigating the Light for jazz alto Jay Clayton, soprano Thomasa Eckert, chamber orchestra, and the recorded stories of inmates at Echo Glen Children’s Center. Other notable concert commissions have included Leningrad Spring for the New Performance Group, TREE for the San Francisco Symphony, and Callin’ Home Coyote for the Port Costa Players.

Giteck’s works have been performed and broadcast throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China and India. She has received numerous awards including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Seattle Arts Commission, the California Arts Council, the Lila Wallace Foundation, and the Djerassi Foundation, among others. Her concert music is available on the MODE, New Albion, Periplum and Innova labels. Giteck holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in Music Composition from Mills College and an M.A. in Psychology from Antioch University. She studied over a seven–year period both at Mills College and the Aspen Institute with the noted composer Darius Milhaud and with Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatory on a grant from the French government.