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Composer Page for Deanna Witkowski

deanna-witkowski

Deanna Witkowski is a New York City based pianist, composer ,and vocalist. Her 2017 trio album, “Makes the Heart to Sing: Jazz Hymns,” features fourteen of her jazz hymn arrangements alongside a companion sheet music book.

As a jazz pianist, Witkowski won the 2002 Great American Jazz Piano Competition and was featured on Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz. Her compositions have won the 2017 ChoralArt New England Carol Contest; the 2016 Illinois-ACDA Composition Contest; and the 2017 annual hymn search sponsored by the Hymn Society in the US and Canada.

As a 2018 Sacatar Institute Fellow, Witkowski recently spent eight weeks in Itaparica, Bahia, Brazil, doing research for her upcoming Afro-Brazilian project, the “Nossa Senhora Suite.” Her upcoming biography, Mary Lou Williams: Music for the Soul, will be published by Liturgical Press in 2020.

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Oração da Viajante (The Traveler’s Prayer) – Voicing: SATB  Instrumentation: Piano  Performance Length: 3:50  Notation: Standard  Text Source: Deanna Witkowski  Language: Portuguese  Descriptive Terms: Courage, Mary, Mother, Prayerful, Tender  First Performance: Jun 15, 2018: Choral Arts Initiative, Brandon Elliott, St. Mark Presbyterian Church, Newport Beach, CA    Text SettingSource for Scores(P:E 928/1015~2019-Q4)
Where Shadow Chases Light – Voicing: SSAA  Instrumentation: Piano  Performance Length: 3:24  Notation: Standard  Text Source: Rabindranath Tagore  Language: English  Seasonal/Liturgical Use: Solstice  Descriptive Terms: Light, Spiritual  First Performance: Jun 30, 2016: Illinois ACDA Directors’ Chorus, Jonathan Reed, IL-ACDA Summer ReTreat at Illinois State University, Normal, IL    Text SettingComposer’s NotesSource for Scores(P:E 928/976~2019-Q3)
A Christmas Carol – Voicing: SATB  Instrumentation: Unaccompanied  Performance Length: 3:06  Notation: Standard  Text Source: G. K. Chesterton, Wild Knight, The (1900)  Language: English  Seasonal/Liturgical Use: Christmas  Descriptive Terms: Evocative, Rich, Strength  First Performance: Jan 07, 2018: ChoralArt Camerata, Robert Russell, Williston-Immanuel United Church, Portland, ME    Text SettingComposer’s NotesSource for Scores(P:E 928/929~2019-Q1)
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