IGOR KARAČA


Sarajevo, 2023

Dr. Igor Karača is a Bosnian-American composer and pianist of classical and jazz music. Most of Karača's work has been for chamber ensembles and electronic media. He employs a wide variety of techniques, ranging from controlled aleatoric, free-jazz inspired textures, to more traditional, neoclassical style; he usually aims to make his work accessible to a relatively large audience.

After taking private music lessons, Karača studied music at the Academy of Music in Sarajevo under Josip Magdić and Andjelka Bego-Simunić. He graduated in 1996 with a BM in music composition, and has since been a guest at different masterclasses in Europe, working with Boguslaw Schaeffer, Klaus Huber, Helmut Lachenmann, Marc-André Dalbavie and Marco Stroppa, among others.
In 1999 Karača came to United States to study composition with Dr. Thomas Wells at the Ohio State University, from which he received his DMA in 2005.

Igor Karača has written three symphonies, suite for wind ensemble, concertante works for clarinet and piano, thirty electro-acoustic compositions, over seventy chamber compositions, including the award-wining Wind Trio, Between Walls for violin, clarinet and piano, Filigree for saxophone, accordion, vibraphone and piano, and Handful of Dust for bass clarinet and piano. Karača composed dramatic scores for three motion pictures: A House Over the Rainbow, Sarajevo War Diary and Tell Me Your Name Again, and four theater plays: Twelfth Night, Fate of a Cockroach, As You Like It and Requiem for 'Bird' Parker.

Recent performances include premieres in the USA, Croatia, Ireland, Serbia, Switzerland and the Netherlands, and other performances in Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Sweden.

He was a member of Sarajevo Jazz Quartet, jazz quintet Happy End and Bosnian pop-rock band Punkt, for which he played piano, Hammond organ and electronic keyboards.

Dr. Karača is teaching courses on music composition, jazz improvisation, orchestration, technology and theory at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater. He is a Visiting Full Professor of Music at Sarajevo Music Academy, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Compositions

"Iron Planet"
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Iron Planet is an ambient sonic exploration featuring odd organic ripples, sometimes insectile and spluttering, leading into sheets of synthetic tones sweeping slowly across the soundscape, with deeper drones and subtle samples of processed human voice and bowed percussion looming below.

Igor Karaca: voice, percussion, Korg MS-20 synthesizer, Pittsburgh Modular Foudation 3.1+ synthesizer, NI Reaktor, Reason 11.
"Mantra" for Saxophone Quartet
A mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that is considered capable of "creating spiritual transformation". These words -

"Om Bhur Bhuvas Suvaha
Tat Savitur Varenyam
Bhargo Devasya Dhimahi
Dhiyoyonah Prachodayyat"

were used as a basic material for the piece, and then translated - in a process similar to "Between Walls" below - into a modal stream of notes played on the saxophones. This mantra is known as the "mother of the Vedas".

Performed by the H2 Saxophone Quartet.

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"Between Walls" for Violin, Clarinet and Piano
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Between Walls is an experimental piece, belonging to the genre of computer-assisted algorithmic music. Three short articles from NY Times were used as a basic material for the piece, manipulated in real time through the use of a special algorithm programmed by the composer, and then translated - using a personal computer running ArtWonk into a musical data stream played on the violin, clarinet and piano.

Performed by Dr. Laura Talbott (violin), prof. Babette Belter (clarinet) and Dr. Zarina Melik-Stepanova (Piano).

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