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MIGDAL

About

Niki Harlafti is a Greek, Chicago-based composer, educator, and PhD candidate in Music Composition at Bienen School of Music (Northwestern University), under the mentorship of Jay Alan Yim, Hans Thomalla, and Alex Mincek. Ms. Harlafti also holds a M.M. in Composition and Theory from New England Conservatory of Music (Boston), where she studied with Efstratios Minakakis and Anthony Coleman.

Musically, she is currently exploring the physicality of sound, the performing body and its musical dramaturgy, language, voice, improvisation, and electronics. Aesthetically, she is interested in the absurd, the interplay of contradiction, surprise, continuity and transformation, as well as the notions of unraveling and disruption. Her work pivots between sensitivity and violence, comedy and drama, musical and theatrical narrativity, as well as their common denominators.

Her music has been presented at Musikinstitut Darmstadt (Germany), CNMF by loadbang (NC), June in Buffalo Festival (NY), Ear Taxi (Chicago), ECCE Music Festival (France), and more. Her upcoming works include a commission for violin and cello by the Onassis Foundation (Onassis Stegi, GR | 2023), the original soundtrack for a documentary by Christos Kapatos (Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, GR | 2023), a work for solo bassoon by Ben Roidl-Ward (U.S. tour and GR), and solo saxophone by Thomas Giles (U.S.).

She has collaborated with a number of poets, including Laura Mullen and Sun Yung Shin (U.S.), choreographers such as Mikaela Kanzafiri (GR) and Nancy Nerantzi (GR/U.K.), cinematographer Christos Kapatos (GR), and painter Francisco Ledesma (MX).

Her recent projects include the original soundtrack for the dance film Migdal by Anima Libera Dance Company (GR), (Demilitarized Zone) for mixed choir which was premiered by the Bienen Contemporary Ensemble under the baton of Donald Nally (Chicago | 2022), as well as Enduring Freedom for solo voice, fixed media and live electronics (Chicago | 2022). During her tenure as Composer-in-Residence at The Megalopolis Saxophone Orchestra (Boston/New York) she composed Kintsugi for eleven saxophones (NYC | 2018-19/Revised NYC Premiere 2021). Her work Vaisseau Fantôme is on the album Is This ~Nois (2020), by ~Nois saxophone quartet, available on Bandcamp, Spotify, Τidal, and most streaming services.