Sasha Bogdanowitsch is a composer, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, actor and dancer, whose work strives to unite East and West sensibilities by working towards a unique ‘world’ musical language. His compositional output has ranged from writing for chamber ensembles to multitrack tapes with live performance to music for unique ensembles, such as gamelan and early music groups, to live and recorded music for theater, dance and film.
Sasha has a Master of Arts from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts, both where he studied composition and world musics, integrating the two into multi-movement, interdisciplinary performances. These works, such as ‘An Ocean Walks Behind a Lake’, ‘Atom Turning in the Sun of Eternity’, ‘Chakra Mundi’ and ‘Akasha’, have focused on the merging of music with theater, movement, and visuals alongside themes of universal cycles and creation.
Sasha has worked extensively as composer and/or a performer in many contexts. He is currently active performing & creating a new music theatre work, “On Becoming,”with vocalist / composer, Sabrina Lastman, is a co-founder of SaReel Project, an ensemble that performs original music with homemade and world instrumentation. He is also a co-founder of World In One, a non-profit organization whose purpose is to sponsor interdisciplinary collaborations. Bogdanowitsch has also worked with the late composer Lou Harrison, Meredith Monk, Artisan Entertainment, the American Festival of Microtonal Music, Hesperus, M6, choreographers & dancers Faith Pilger & Otis Cook on the multimedia dance theater work, ‘Grimm,’ Rod Poole, puppeteer and theater director Kathy Foley, New Music Works, Just Strings, Ockham’s Razor, Weave and the gamelans: Son of Lion, Si Aptos, Si Betty, Sari Raras, Pusaka Sunda and UCSC. Awards have included a BMI 1995 Student Composer Award for his ‘Encompassing’ for four tenor voices and a Meet the Composer grant with the American Festival for Microtonal Music.
Sasha Bogdanowitsch has studied composition with Lou Harrison, David Evan Jones, Richard Zvonar, Alan Chaplin, Mark McGurty, and Ros Bandt. He has performed and studied classical North Indian music, Central Javanese gamelan and Sundanese tembang in their countries of origin and in the United States. For the former, he has studied on voice, bansuri bamboo flute and tabla with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Salamat Ali Khan, Pandit Pran Nath, Terry Riley, Amiya Dasgupta, G.S.Sachdev, Iqbal Singh, Kalyan Chowdury, John Sackett, David Philipson and Jeffery Whittier. For the latter, he has studied with Djoko Walujo, Nyoman Wenten, Undang Sumarna, Lou Harrison, Sumarsam, I.M. Harjito, Burhan Sukarma, Rukruk Rukmana, Tatang Rukmana, and Yayah Dachlan.
Sasha has taught world music/ ethnomusicology classes at University of New Haven and Central CT State University and has completed two television film scores, ‘The Burkittsville 7’ and ‘Shadow of the Blair Witch’ for Artisan Entertainment and independent film scores for ‘Tea Time’ by Jay Bogdanowitsch & ‘Laundromat Days’ by Simon O’Reilly. Bogdanowitsch has recently recorded with the Meredith Monk Vocal Ensemble for Monk’s new CD, ‘Impermenance’ for ECM Records that has been nominated for a 2009 Grammy.
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