Friends of Today's Music Commissions Composer Katrina Wreede

Join us with Katrina Wreede:

Ms. Wreede (pronounced Reedie) will compose a new quintet for piano and string quartet aimed at intermediate level students. This work may also be expanded to piano and string orchestra. This is an outstanding opportunity for young students to experience the joy of performing chamber music and also to work closely with the composer.

Teachers interested in submitting students to perform the premiere during the MTAC Convention June 28-July 2, 2013 in Santa Clara should contact FTM chair:

Katrina Wreede, award-winning composer and internationally recognized violist, is a tireless proponent for promoting improvisation on string instruments, viola playing of all kinds, and hands-on musical experiences for young people. With over 30 years experience in individual and ensemble instruction and a nationwide reputation for creating compelling and inspirational compositions and classroom workshops, she thrives on developing and sharing exciting opportunities for the next generation to explore the tools they’ll need to take music forward.

Besides creating the “Composing Together”, “My Goldfish Died-Blues for Strings” and “The Teddy Bear Picnic-Introducing Composition to Beginning Musicians” programs, Wreede is a founding faculty member of the John Adams Young Composer Program at the Crowden School, teaches Comprehensive Musicianship for the San Francisco Community Music Center, and is an accredited Teaching Artist for the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission. She began her work bringing youth to composition in 1998, when she became “Composer in the Schools” for the American Composers Forum-San Francisco Bay Area Chapter, later creating their handbook for professional composers learning to work with young people. She has provided teacher training for American String Teachers Assoc, the Montana String Teachers Assoc., Bronxville Unified School District, San Francisco Unified School District, and Nevada County School District and has taught for Oakland Youth Symphony, Young People’s Youth Symphony, Berkeley Youth Symphony, California Youth Symphony, and many schools around the country.

Wreede composes for both the traditional concert stage and unusual venues, like her “Drive-By Violas” project inside a Boston fruit stand and bus kiosk, concerts at the Butterfly Pavilion in Denver, and the “Living Wind Chimes” filling the lobby of a Federal Building with calming bells and many teenagers. She has been a professional symphony musician, a member of the ground-breaking Turtle Island String Quartet, a concert soloist, a belly dancer, a police finger-printer, a strolling, rhinestone-studded “big violinist” for royalty, a non-denominational wedding officiant, a student of Tango Nuevo, Persian, and Roma music and a composer and performer for chamber ensembles, orchestras, silent film, and dance. Her compositions are performed internationally including by the Ahn Trio, David Parsons Dance Troupe, the Omaha Symphony, Boston Chamber Orchestra, San Jose Chamber Orchestra, Colorado Chamber Players, Turtle Island String Quartet, and Orchestra Rosario in Argentina. Her work appears on dozens of CDs, and her solo CD of original jazz and classical works for viola, “Add Viola and Stir”, is heard world-wide on radio and streaming sites.

Listen to "ADD VIOLA AND STIR" CD at: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/katrinawreede