Alla Borzova
Composer, Pianist, Soprano
Alla Borzova is a composer whose music has been frequently commissioned and performed internationally. Born in Minsk, Belarus, she arrived in the United States in 1993. When honoring her with the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship, the American Academy of Arts and Letters hailed her as a "force on the American musical scene" with the observation: "Every note she writes has an intensity and immediacy that is as startling as it is affecting." Two-time winner of the All-Union Composition Contest before her arrival in the U.S., the winner of the Delius Composition Contest, the recipient of the Susan Rose Recording Award, bestowed by the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, she has also received awards from various foundations (ASCAP, the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, Copland Recording Program, New York Foundation for the Arts, American Music Center), held residencies (Yaddo, Brahmshaus in Baden-Baden, Germany), and served on the panel of the New York State Council for the Arts.
Ms. Borzova’s highly imaginative music has theatrical quality and combines lyricism and “mischief” (The New Yorker), classically balanced form and refined contemporary technique. Borzova’s compositions have been presented at Aspen, Cabrillo, Delius, and Sonic Boom music festivals in the U.S. and major festivals in Russia and Belarus, such as Moscow Musical Autumn, Sound Ways (St. Petersburg) and Belarusian Musical Autumn (Minsk). Her music has also been commissioned and presented by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (Leonard Slatkin’s direction), Cabrillo Festival Orchestra (Marin Alsop’s direction), Cassatt String Quartet, Cutting Edge concert series, Da Capo Chamber Players, St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, Dale Warland Singers, New Amsterdam Singers, Central City Chorus, The New York Concert Singers, Gregg Smith Singers, National Symphony Orchestra of Belarus (Alexander Anissimov’s direction), Symphony Orchestra and Choirs of Belarusian Radio and Television (Anatoly Lapunov’s direction), as well as individual performers from all over the world.
Two all-Borzova compact disks include the composer’s orchestral music: cantata Songs for Lada (Belarusian folk poetry) and To The New World (“American Classics”, Naxos 2012), recorded by the Michigan State University Children’s Choir, soloists, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin’s direction. Borzova’s chamber disk “Pinsk & Blue” (Albany Records 2007), includes, among other works, two extended compositions for tenor and ensemble: solo cantata Majnun Songs (poetry by Majnun, a 7th century Arabic poet; the performances also feature Arabic dancer) and humorous song cycle Mother Said (contemporary American poetry by Hal Sirowitz). Other compositions on the disk include Images Françaises (violin and piano), Scherzo (clarinet and piano) and Pinsk & Blue (accordion and piano.) Recorded by the Naumburg Award-winning ensemble Da Capo Chamber Players and the distinguished American soloists, the disk also features the composer as a pianist and conductor.
Among Borzova’s many compositions for voice is the song cycle Merry Hour (poetry by Mikhail Lermontov), premiered at Merkin Hall by tenor Steven Ebel and Da Capo Chamber Players under the composer’s direction. Extended choral works include The Ballad of Barnaby (W.H Auden’s paraphrase of the medieval French legend Le Jongleur de Notre Dame) and the cycle When The Wind Is Blowing(poetry by the Belarusian poet Maxim Tank). Among her theatrical works are the one-act comic opera The Wedding Gift of Pirate Granny (libretto by David Johnston, presented by the American Lyric Theatre and Hartford Opera Theatre), one-act ballet When Reason Sleeps and Wakes: Goya images inspired by Goya’s drawings; and The Animal That Drank Up Sound, a “musictelling” work, commissioned and toured in all U.S. states by Tales & Scales. Among her piano compositions is Gulliver’s Travels: A Voyage to Laputa, commissioned by Susan Rose through Meet the Composer and premiered by the noted Russian-American pianist Vassily Primakov. Borzova’s concert organ piece, And The Greatest of These Is Love,was commissioned and premiered by Gail Archer at the Central Synagogue in Manhattan. The piece, now toured by Ms. Archer all over the world, was inspired by Chagall’s and Matisse’s stained glass windows at the Union Church of Pocantico Hills in Westchester county of New York State.
Alla Borzova began piano studies and composing at the age of six. She holds a Doctorate in Composition from the Moscow Conservatory where she studied Composition with Alexander Pirumov. She has pursued additional doctoral studies at CUNY Graduate School with David Del Tredici. John Corigliano also championed her music. Borzova has taught at Hunter and Lehman Colleges of the City University of New York and, in addition to composing, maintains an active career as a pianist, conductor, organist, and singer (lyric coloratura soprano).
As a singer, she performs the repertory ranging from Renaissance to contemporary. Recent performances include a concert with mezzo-soprano Anna Tonna entitled, "There Is a Magic Made by Melody", dedicated to historical and contemporary women composers and sponsored by a grant from the New York Women Composers; the performances at Opera America (a scene from Alla Borzova’s comic chamber opera The Wedding Gift of Pirate Granny), Liederkrantz Foundation, Barnard College, historic St. Joseph of Arimathea Church in White Plains, and many others. Alla Borzova lives in Pelham with her husband, composer Alexander Dmitriev.
"Collage", poems by Kate Light, music by Alla Borzova;
Alla Borzova, soprano, Olga Gurevich, pianoMusicians Club of New York Member/Composers Concert, Saturday, March 12, 2016, Liederkranz Concert Hall, New York City. Video by Paula and Chris Argondizza.
Two arias from The Wedding Gift of Pirate Granny ("I wish I had a family / I want to be a pirate just like Granny" and "I miss you, Granny"), libretto by David Johnston, music by Alla Borzova; Alla Borzova, soprano, Olga Gurevich, piano
Musicians Club of New York Member/Composers Concert, Saturday, March 12, 2016, Liederkranz Concert Hall, New York City. Video by Paula and Chris Argondizza.
