Mika Pelo
Professor of Music,
Graduate Advisor of
Composition and Theory
Swedish composer Mika Pelo writes music for soloists, chamber ensembles, and orchestras, with or without electronics. He holds a doctorate in composition from Columbia University and is associate professor of composition at UC Davis. His principal composition teachers include Tristan Murail and Bent Sørensen.
Pelo is inspired by the French so-called spectral composers and Scandinavian lyricism and describes his method of composition as “controlled dreaming.” The Strad magazine writes that Pelo’s music “fashions a fascinating mosaic of sonorities,” and the Irish Times writes that Pelo’s music is built by “gestures that were once the province of the avant-garde . . . here pliably exploited by a sensibility that sounded decidedly romantic.” His music is published by Edition Peters, Germany.
Ensembles that have commissioned or performed music by Pelo include: Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Manfred Honeck, Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra, Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra, North Bohemian Philharmonic Orchestra, Flux Quartet (New York), The Swedish Concert Institute, Cecilia Zilliacus, Bengt Forsberg, Earplay, Red Light New Music (New York), The Barbad Chamber Orchestra (New York), Mika Takehara, Nya Stenhammarkvartetten, Musica Vitae, KammarensembleN, The Pearls Before Swine Experience, and the HUGO string quartet (Iceland).
