Gary Kulesha

Gary Kulesha, born in Toronto in 1954, is a Canadian composer and conductor whose career combines composition with extensive teaching and musical administration in his country. He trained at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, where he graduated in 1978 under William Andrews and Samuel Dolin, and then continued his studies with John McCabe in England (1978–1981) and with John Corigliano in New York in 1982.

As a conductor, he was music director of the Stratford Festival of Ontario from 1983 to 1985 and, from 1987, has led the Canadian Contemporary Music Workshop. He also served as composer-in-residence with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra (1988–1992) and the Canadian Opera Company (1993–1995), and since 1995 has been composer-advisor to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. At the same time, he has taught at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, at the Royal Conservatory and at the University of Toronto, where he directed the Contemporary Music Ensemble.

His style brings together very diverse influences. Mysterium coniunctionis (1980), inspired by the writings of Carl Jung, and Shaman Songs (1990), setting Inuit texts, reveal the weight of the choral tradition and of vocal and percussive resources, as well as the influence of Ligeti and Elliott Carter. The Piano Trio (1991) incorporates minimalist ostinatos and an energy reminiscent of Shostakovich, while The Gates of Time (1991) draws on pointillist and aleatoric techniques. His Recorder Concerto (1991) blends the style of the Baroque concerto with procedures drawn from Asian music.

Among his most significant works are the five Chamber Concertos, which run through much of his catalogue. His music, broad in scope and with a notable attention to timbre, places him among the significant voices of Canadian composition at the end of the twentieth century.