Composer's Work Cited (12/31/77)

Composer's Work Cited

HAGAMAN, N.Y. - An international jury has selected Daria Semegen's work "Music for Violin Solo" for performance by a prize-winning, violinist in the "World Music Days" festival of the International Society of Contemporary Music which was held in Helsinki, Finland, last month, according to The Recorder of Amsterdam N.Y.

Miss Semegen is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Weresiuk of Hagaman. They are members of UNA Branch 266.

Her composition represented the United States in the international festival. Daria Semegen is assistant professor and associate director of the Electronic Music Studios of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Long Island.

Her numerous composition awards and honors includes two Broadcast Music Inc. awards, two National Endowment for the Arts Commission grants, and a prize in the 1975 International Electronic Music Competition.

Daria Semegen began writing music concurrently with her piano studies at age seven and subsequently studied composition privately with Otto Miller and David Holden. She continued composition studies at the Eastman School of Music with Robert Gauldin, Burrill Phillips, and Samuel H. Adler and received a Bachelor's degree in composition in 1968. She spent the following year in Warsaw, Poland, as a Fulbright Grant Scholar studying composition with Witold Lutoslawski and electronic music at the Warsaw Conservatory studio. While in Poland, she received a Yale University Fellowship in music and returned to the United States in 1969 to attend Yale University where she studied composition and electronic music with Bulent Arel and theory with Alexander Goehr. She received a Master's degree in composition at Yale in 1971.

Her work in electronic music continued at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in the summer of 1971 and she received a Columbia University scholarship and Rappoport Fellowship for continuing studies at the Center with Vladimir Ussachevsky for the period of three years under the auspices of the School of the Arts of Columbia University. During 1971-74 she was sound engineer for the Boulto Collection of World Music at Columbia University where she edited and refurbished tape recordings for the ethnomusicological archives, including early recordings made on wax cylinders, carbon discs, and wire. Since 1971, she has been technical assitant to both Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky in the creation and modification of electronic music materials for subsequent disc recording (C.R.I. Records 297 and 334). Since January 1974 she has been a member of the Department of Music Faculty at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Long Island, where she is Associate Director of the Electronic Music Laboratory studios and designer of the professional Recording Studios project. Her compositions include solo chamber, choral, orchestra, electronic music, and vocal music combined with various instrumental groups.

Since childhood, Miss Semegen was active in the Ukrainian community in Amsterdam, N.Y. She appeared as a pianist or conductor and musical director of a local orchestra at various Ukrainian events.

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