"A new and exciting musical voice....Michael Kurek...writes in an effortlessly vibrant tonal idiom which suits him naturally and without any forced self-consciousness...Kurek simply follows his expressive instincts and gives us music which falls consistently and naturally into place, with its ceaseless tides of lyrical ebb and flow, embellished with impressionistic atmosphere and a sure sense of dramatic pacing...he has the potential of growing into one of the major figures of his generation." -- Fanfare Magazine
Throughout his stylistic evolution from modernism to postmodernism to what he calls “inclusive traditionalism,” Michael Kurek's ever-present integrity of craft and his music's emotional power have steadily earned him both national and international recognition. He has received some of the nation's most important composition awards and has enjoyed world-wide performance, publication, and recording of his works for the concert hall. His numerous prizes for composition include the Academy Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Academy's highest annual “lifetime achievement” award in music (the Academy had earlier awarded him their Charles Ives Prize). Kurek has garnered a MacDowell Fellowship from the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire; a Fromm Fellowship in Composition at the Tanglewood Music Center; a Fellowship at the Wellesley College Composers Conference; and first-place wins in many national composition competitions, along with prestigious awards and recognitions from Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), the American Symphony Orchestra League, Meet the Composer Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Music Teachers' National Association. He serves on several professional boards and committees, including voting membership and service to NARAS (National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences) in Los Angeles, which administers the Grammy Awards, and the John W. Work III Memorial Foundation, which awards minority music scholarships nationally. A popular guest composer at Universities and music schools, Dr. Kurek also serves as an adjudicator in national music competitions, such as the Music Teachers National Association's MTNA-Shepherd "Distinguished Composer of the Year" award, the Golden Key Honor Society, the Young Texas Artists Music Competition, the National Federation of Music Clubs Young Composers Competition, the Marion Richter American Music Awards, and the Victor Herbert/ASCAP Awards.
Michael Kurek's music has been performed throughout the U.S. and, internationally, multiple times in France , England , Germany, Japan , Korea , Denmark , Czech Republic , Russia , and on Swedish television. A variety of professional soloists and chamber groups have performed his works during numerous guest composer residencies at universities, music festivals, conferences, and concert venues (e.g., the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D. C.). Michael Kurek's works have been featured by the principal professional symphony orchestras of cities as diverse as Atlanta , Indianapolis , Green Bay , Nashville , Bridgeport , Lansing , and Fargo , by the Pacific Symphony Orchestra in Los Angeles , the Czech Radio Philharmonic in Prague , the Tomsk Philharmonic ( Russia ), the Reutlingen Philharmonie (Stuttgart, Germany), and several university orchestras and chamber ensembles. He has been profiled in numerous magazines, journals, and newspapers, and his music has been widely broadcasted on classical radio stations, including nationally on NPR's “Morning Edition” and nation-wide on Germany's "KlassikRadio." A BMI-affiliated composer, he is published by International Music Service ( New York ), Lyon & Healy (Chicago), The Tuba Euphonium Press, and Spectrum Music Press ( Los Angeles ). His works are available internationally on compact disc through New World Records (New York) and over 50 major digital download distributors.
Professor Kurek served several years as Chair of the Department of Music Composition / Theory at the Blair School of Music of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and has now given up the administrative part of his position (while continuing to teach), in order to devote himself more fully to an increasing number of commissions. He previously held positions at the State University of New York at Fredonia and at the Chicago Musical College of Roosevelt University. His own teachers included European composers Hans Werner Henze and Eugene Kurtz, along with American Pulitzer-prize winners Leslie Bassett and William Bolcom at the University of Michigan , where he received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition.
At the American Academy of Arts and Letters May, 1994 Ceremonial in New York , composer Ned Rorem read aloud the following citation: "Michael Kurek's music harmonizes in a charming and compelling way, intense lyricism with intellectual depth, clear and elegant formal design, and with a richly imaginative orchestral surface. His harp concerto exemplifies his ability of displaying a musical narrative that is as accessible as it is demanding. His musical world is an intensely traditional one, accented and punctuated by gestures and rhythms of today."
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