The music of composer Alla Borzova has been frequently commissioned and performed internationally. She was born in Minsk, Belarus, where she began piano studies and composing at the age of six. She holds a Doctorate in Composition from the Moscow Conservatory where she studied with Alexander Pirumov. Arriving in the US in 1993, she has made her home in New York since 1996. She pursued additional doctoral studies at the City University of New York Graduate School with David Del Tredici.

Borzova’s oeuvre includes Symphony; the ballet When Reason Sleeps and Wakes: Goya Images; and a “musictelling” fairy tale The Animal That Drank Up Sound (poem by William Stafford). Compositions for solo voice include three extended works for tenor and ensemble: the song cycle Merry Hour (poetry by Mikhail Lermontov), the cantata (with Arabic dancer) Majnun Songs (poetry by Majnun, a 7th-century Arabic poet), and the mischievous song cycle Mother Said (American poetry by Hal Sirowitz). Among her choral works are The Ballad of Barnaby (WH Auden’s paraphrase of Le Jongleur de Notre Dame) and When The Wind Is Blowing (Belarusian poetry by Maxim Tank). Among frequently performed chamber works are Gulliver’s Travels: A Voyage to Laputa for piano; Images Françaises and Pinsk & Blue, both for violin and piano (the latter also has concertina and accordion versions); and Scherzo for clarinet and piano. Her album, “Pinsk & Blue, ” featuring the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players and the composer as pianist and conductor, was released by Albany Records in 2007.

Read about Alla Borzova’s work (Naxos 8.559706) in the Belarusian press:

euroradio.fm
budzma.org