Kornicki, Steve

Composer Steve Kornicki writes concert music based on algorithmic 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. Kornicki studied music composition and music theory with Jeffrey Mumford (a student of Elliott Carter), guitar with William Peters and jazz performance with John David Simon at Philadelphia’s Settlement Music School. 

His music has been performed and/or recorded by the Brevard Symphony Orchestra, Kiev Philharmonic, Ensemble P4, the Julliard-based New York Miniaturist Ensemble, West End String Quartet, Chicago Miniaturist Ensemble, pianist Nicolas Horvath, Accessible Contemporary Music, percussionists, Dr. David Gerhart, Scotty Horey, Dr. Thad Anderson, Evan Chapman, J.B. Smith and Sean O’Hea, trumpet player, Mark Sunderland, Rhodes College Orchestra, California State University Long Beach Percussion Ensemble, Ithaca College Percussion Ensemble (under Gordon Stout), University of Central Florida Percussion Ensemble and the Chicago Miniaturist Ensemble. His electro-acoustic music with video includes presentations at “Digital Graffiti” at Alys Beach, Florida (2013), California State University Fullerton’s 2011 New Music Festival, New American Art Union(Portland, OR), Grand Valley State University’s “Freeplay Six, Listening Chamber”, Unitarian Universalist Church of New York (Manhattan), West Valley Art Museum (Phoenix, AZ), Sweetwater Center for the Arts (Pittsburgh, PA) and the International Video Art Festival 2007 (Tucson, AZ).

He has conducted presentations about his composition methods and processes at the Florida State Music Teachers Association conference 2016, University of Central Florida, and Eastern Florida State College. 

He organized a concert for trumpet and electronics in October 2016 at the Timucua Arts White House including works by Stockhausen, Thad Anderson, Chan Ji Kim, Charles Griffin and three works by himself.   In September 2013, he 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.  This work received its world premiere by the Florida-based Brevard Symphony Orchestra  in January 2015 led by  Christopher Confessore.  French pianist, composer and Liszt interpreter, Nicolas Horvath premiered “Tempo Distortion #5” for piano and digitally processed piano sounds at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris at Glassworlds, a 2014 concert event dedicated to the piano music of Philip Glass and hommages to Glass by composers from around the world.  Subsequently, Kornicki helped organize a “Glassworlds” event by Horvath in Orlando, September 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 – UCF performance on Youtube.  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, Horizontal Color Forms 12 “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 several video performances 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 8broadcast on NPR’s “Hearts of Space” program.  The 2006 piece, Horizontal Color Forms 15 (Four Pieces for string quartet) was premiered by the West End String Quartet in 2007 and broadcast on classical WQED, Pittsburgh.  Kornicki has collaborated on multiple pieces for percussion ensemble and solo percussionist and tape with Dr. David Gerhart at California State University Long Beach – Echoes of Emergence conducted by David Gerhart on Youtube.  His music is published by Media Press Inc.  and by his own Fragmented View Music.

He also composes 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 News, Modern Marvels, Major League Baseball, 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, CBS and NBC.

For more information, visit http://stevekornicki.com/.