Alyssa Aska

Alyssa is fascinated with the architecture of music, both spatially and temporally. She composes works which explore extremes in time and space, using rigid proportions to generate forms in acoustic works and exploring the unpredictable duration and lack of control in gamified works. This is closely tied to her compositional style, which is concerned with a delicate balance between elements of functional form and elements of pure aesthetic purpose. As much structure as possible, as many ornaments as necessary (and vice versa).

She studied composition in the United States with Robert Kyr, David Crumb, and Jeffrey Stolet, in Canada with Robert Pritchard, Keith Hamel, and David Eagle, and in Graz, Austria with Marko Ciciliani and Klaus Lang. Alyssa’s work and research are performed worldwide at various concerts and festivals such as Wien Modern, Ars Electronica Linz, Forum Wallis, ICMC, EMS, Impuls, Darmstadt Summer Courses, Musikprotokoll, Tonraum21, ComposIt, Mirkofest Helsinki, Microtonal Festival Prague, and many others. She was selected for participation at many academies and workshops such as WasteLAnd Academy (2019), CrossROADS Festival (2019), and Kalv Festival Academy (2020), and reMusik.org (2021). She was also selected for performance at the Gamified Audiovisual Performance and Performance Practice (Gappp) Symposium 2019. Alyssa is a founding member of the Graz facere collective, which presents every year concerts in various formats, and is a current member of the Graz collective Die Andere Saite.