About the Composer
Alexina Louie
Read about the composer's composition/s
In 2002, Alexina Louie was awarded the prestigious Louis Applebaum Composition Award for excellence in composing for film and television.
In the Spring of 2002, Louie received the first National Arts Centre Award, a new prize spanning 4-years of creativity with the National Arts Centre Orchestra.
Alexina Louie has been widely commissioned and performed by Canada's leading orchestras, new music ensembles, chamber groups and soloists. Her music emphasizes craft and imagination stemming from a wide variety of influences - from her Chinese heritage to her theoretical, historical and performance studies. Through an on-going investigation of scores, recordings, literature, poetry and visual arts, combined with introspection and continuous composition, Alexina Louie has developed a uniquely personal style rooted in a blend of East and West.
Notable performances include the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra's performance of The Ringing Earth for the gala opening of Expo 86, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra's performance of the same work in the United Nations General Assembly on United Nations Day (1989), the Toronto Symphony Orchestra's tours of Europe (1986) and the Pacific Rim (1990), and pianist Jon Kimura Parker's performance of Scenes from a Jade Terrace, on the programme for the gala opening of the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo (1991).
1993 marked the world premiere of Gallery Fanfares, Arias and Interludes, a one-hour work commissioned by the Art Gallery of Ontario for the opening ceremonies of its new gallery spaces and renovations. In 1993, Louie's O Magnum Mysterium: In Memoriam Glenn Gould was performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. It was performed again in 1994 by the St. Louis Symphony, Leonard Slatkin conducting.
In 1992, Louie, winner of two JUNO Awards, received the SOCAN Award for being the most frequently performed Canadian composer - the second time she has received the award since it was established in 1990. In 1994, she was presented with the Chalmer's Award National Music Award for the vocal movements of Gallery Fanfares, Arias and Interludes.
Louie has served as composer-in-residence at several music festivals including the 1993 Scotia Festival, the 1994 Vancouver Chamber Music Festival, the 1996 Boris Brott Summer Music Festival and the 1999 Banff Arts Festival.
Among the highly-regarded conductors who have performed Louie's music are Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Mario Bernardi, Sir Andrew Davis, Charles Dutoit, Gunther Herbig, Alexander Lazarev, Keith Lockhart, Alex Pauk, Leonard Slatkin and Bramwell Tovey.
From 1996 to 2002, Alexina Louie was composer-in-residence at the Canadian Opera Company, for which she developed a main stage, full-length opera, The Scarlet Princess, with Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly). Their erotic ghost story, based on a seventeenth-century Kabuki play, was given its full concert premiere by the Canadian Opera Company on April 23, 2002 in Toronto
"The Asian element (in The Scarlet Princess) is no mere chinoiserie that ornaments the music, but a careful integration of slithering strings, a bevy of gongs, bowed cymbals and percussive piano, into a richly colored tapestry for large orchestra. Relentless force plus disciplined dissonance mark the score as modern, while moments of spell-binding lyricism supported by near-Straussian opulence give it warmth. . . it is a work of weight, profundity and promise."
- Wes Blomster, andante.com
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Louie's film work includes co-writing, with Alex Pauk, the orchestral soundtrack for Don McKellar's feature film Last Night (winner of the Prix de Jeunesse, Cannes Film Festival, 1998). The score received a 1998 Genie nomination for Best Original Score and the music has been released as a CD on the Sony Classical label. Louie and Pauk also co-wrote the score for Jeremy Podeswa's feature film The Five Senses which garnered praise both at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival, where it was premiered, and the 1999 Toronto International Film Festival. They have recently completed the score for Barbara Willis Sweete's Perfect Pie, a Rhombus Media feature film based on a Judith Thompson play. The film will be premiered at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival.
Recent film and television projects include collaborative scores with Alex Pauk for the made-for-television movie After the Harvest, directed by Jeremy Podeswa, 24fps, a short film commissioned to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Toronto International Film Festival and Ravel's Brain, a Rhombus Media docu-drama directed by Larry Weinstein.
A CBC Records compact disc comprised entirely of orchestral music by Louie was released in June, 1999. Performances on the disc are by the National Arts Centre Orchestra, conducted by Mario Bernardi with soloists Russell Braun, baritone, and Martin Beaver, violin. Music for a Thousand Autumns, the second CD devoted exclusively to her music was released on the Centrediscs label in 2002.
In October, 1999, the Jules Leger Prize in chamber music was awarded to Dr. Louie for her string ensemble composition Nightfall. In November of 1999, the world premiere of Dominique Dumais' choreography for Louie's O Magnum Mysterium: In Memoriam Glenn Gould was unveiled at the National Ballet of Canada in Toronto.
Toothpaste, Louie's 5-minute tragic opera buffa, with libretto by Dan Redican, has been made into a Bravo!FACT music video, as well as an interactive DVD which can also be accessed on the Internet at toothpastetv.com. This mini-opera has captured world-wide attention at its screenings at MIDEM (Cannes) and INPUT (Rotterdam) and has been purchased for broadcasts and screenings in The Netherlands, Germany, Finland and Taiwan.
Louie is active as an arts advocate and has served on the Boards of the Toronto Arts Awards, The Corporation of Roy Thomson Hall and Massey Hall and The SOCAN Foundation (Society of Composers and Music Publishers of Canada). She currently serves as a Director of The SOCAN Foundation (Society of Composers and Music Publishers of Canada), The Governor General's Awards in the Performing Arts, Esprit Orchestra, and Bravo!FACT. As well, she is in demand as a speaker, arts advisor and juror on arts-related matters.
In the Spring of 2002, she was a recipient of the first National Arts Centre Award, a new prize spanning a 4-year period of creative activity with the National Arts Centre Orchestra. During this time, Dr. Louie will compose three new works for the orchestra and will also develop outreach and educational projects.
In August 2000, Ms. Louie and Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour were special guests of Governor General Adrienne Clarkson on her first official tour of the Northwest Territories and in the Fall of 2001, Ms. Louie again traveled with the Governor General on a State Visit of Germany. In 1997, Alexina Louie was awarded an Honourary Doctorate from the University of Calgary and in 2001 she received The Order of Ontario.
Ms. Louie's most recent film composing project was a score for the made-for-television film The Interrogation of Michael Crowe directed by Don McBrearty for Court Television in Los Angeles. In November, 2002, Alexina was awarded the prestigious Louis Applebaum Composition Award for excellence in composing for film and television.
Composer Interview by Paul Steenhuisen, Wholenote Magazine
Alexina Louie kicks off winter session of Performing Arts Lecture Series
Composer's role with the National Arts Centre
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