Biography

Elizabeth Ogonek (b. 1989) was born in Anoka, MN and moved to New York City when she was four. There, she began her formal music studies at the Manhattan School of Music Preparatory Division at the age of five, concentrating on piano. It was not until her junior year in high school that she began composition studies with Matthew Van Brink. She attended the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University graduating with a Bachelor's Degree in Composition in December of 2009.

Elizabeth has participated in several summer festivals including the Yellow Barn Young Artists' Program, Bowdoin International Music Festival, The American Conservatory in Paris at Fontainebleau, FUBiS in Berlin, Germany and the Wellesley Composers Conference. During the summer of 2011, she traveled to Blonay, Switzerland to attend Music11 where she worked with eighth blackbird, David Lang, Matthias Pintscher and Joel Hoffman followed by a trip to the Aldeburgh Festival in Suffolk, England where she attended the Britten Pears Programme while working under Oliver Knussen, Colin Matthews and Michael Gandolfi.

Her composition teachers have included Matthew Van Brink, Don Freund, Claude Baker, Michael Gandolfi, Samuel Adler and Donald Crockett. She is currently a student of Stephen Hartke.

Elizabeth is the recipient of a 2007 Morton Gould Young Composer Award (ASCAP), 2010 and 2011 Morton Gould Young Composer Honorable Mentions (ASCAP), the 2010 Dean's Prize from Indiana University and the 2010 PACO Youth-for-Youth Commission. In addition, her music has been selected for participation in the 2009 Midwest Composers Symposium and she was chosen to write for the Indiana University Concert Orchestra for Kids Compose. She has received commissions from the Brillaner Duo, the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, and New York-based horn player Alma Maria Liebrecht. Her music has been performed by ensembles such as the Wellesley Sinfonietta, Dinosaur Annex, the Brillaner Duo, members of eighth blackbird and the Britten-Pears Ensemble. Elizabeth looks forward to performances by the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, the Deviant Septet as well as the premiere of Ringing the Quiet for chamber orchestra in the 2012 Aldeburgh Festival.

In the fall of 2010, she began studying for her Master's Degree in Composition at the University of Southern California, Thornton School of Music where she was awarded a teaching assistantship. Elizabeth is a 2009 Beinecke Scholar.