Iwona Glinka

An award-winning Dr Iwona Glinka is a soloist, educator, recording artist, orchestral and chamber musician, and leading performer of new and experimental music. She founded the Phasma-Music Ensemble in 2016, where she currently serves as the artistic director in addition to playing many concerts a year as an ensemble member. She has given dozens of solo recitals with classical and contemporary repertoire and has appeared as Principal Flautist with orchestras and chamber ensembles throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. She has developed a great interest in New Music, which since 1994 has resulted in over one hundred world premières of works by Australian, Belgian, British, Canadian, Greek, German, Polish and US composers, more than one hundred of them commissioned by and written especially for her.

Iwona Glinka was born in Kwidzyn, Poland. At the age of 18 she graduated from the Music Lyceum in Gdansk with a Flute Diploma (Highest Distinction). She continued her studies at the Music Academy of Gdansk, Poland. She graduated from the Academy in 1994 with the degree of Master of Music in Performance (flute). Between 1991 and 1994, on the Baloise Holding Scholarship, she attended the Summer Courses of the Music Academy of Lenk in Switzerland with Peter-Lukas Graf. In 1992, on a scholarship from the Mayor of the City of Darmstadt in Germany, she attended the Ferienkurse für Neue Musik where she studied with Pierre-Yves Artaud. In 1996 there followed a further period of studies at the Accademia Internationale Superiore di Musica in Biella, Italy, again with Peter-Lukas Graf and later at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, France, with Pierre-Yves Artaud.

Since 1995, Iwona Glinka has made Athens, Greece, her second home. In 2015, she relinquished her position with the Athens Symphony Orchestra and Hellenic Contemporary Music Ensemble to pursue a more active solo career after 20 years as an ensemble member and an orchestral musician. She currently divides her time between her family home in Piraeus and Kwidzyn. Currently she is a professor of Flute and Chamber Music at the University of Ioannina in Greece where she has taught since 2020.

Glinka has gained a substantial reputation, in Europe especially but essentially worldwide, for her devotion to new and experimental music. In addition to years of playing in orchestras and chamber ensembles, she has been a tireless recitalist, promoting the music she has discovered and often inspired. Since 2015, she has resigned from orchestral playing—she was principal in the Athens Symphony—and is concentrating on her advocacy. This project, and several other discs released in the last couple of years, are part of the result of that new focus. Her performances are imaginative and committed, her technique always equal to the often considerable demands of the music.  Ronald E. Grames / FANFARE MAGAZINE / Nov-Dec 2017

Concert Dates

  • October 18, 2015 - Nikolaos Mantzaros Conservatory, Athens, Greece

15 one-minute selections

  • Innocent Child Give Rose to his mom on Mother’s Day

    Silvan Abdilla

    Silvan Abdilla is a Maltese composer born in 1974. At the adge of 9 he began to study Music Than He began to study Harmony under Profs Ch. Zammit later he study conposition and counterpoint under Mro. Ray Sciberas.He continue study conducting under Mro. Joseph Sammut. Silvan compose varous types of Music.His music was Played in Australia Croatia and Italy.

    "Innocent Child Give Rose to his mom on Mother’s Day" is composed for Solo flute. The first part of the piece, we are seeing an Innocent child with a rose to give it to his mom as present, on Mother’s Day. The melody is simple to describe the innocence of the child with the rose for his mother as a present for the occasion. The key of the first part is F major. The second part of this piece there is a modulation in C major. In this part we are see the child thanks his mom who gave him BIRTH, gave him LOVE, PROTECT him and do everything for him. The melody remains simplify to identify the innocence of the child.

  • Op.20 Vocalise No.2 in C minor

    Erol Bugra Balci

    Erol Bugra Balci - Born: 06.27.1986, Turkey. Currently lives is New York and is a Master Student at Queens College. He has a Bachelor Degree from Dokuz Eylul University He has received scholoarships from Berklee College of Music, Western Oregon University, The Collective School of Music, Italy Siena Fondazione, and Modern Music Academy He has recorded 4 albums as a sideman of Allessandro Sgobbio,Pete Jung,Ersin Ozyurt,Alper Demir. Erol Bugra Balci is a sub instructor at The Collective School of Music, NY , and is Performing with the Izmir State Symphony Orchestra. Hew won the Yamaha Best Player of Turkey 2008 Award.

  • Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?

    La memoire de berceuse

    Jonathan Blumhofer is a composer, violist, musicologist, music critic, teacher, and whatnot currently residing in Massachusetts. He holds a doctorate from Boston University, along with degrees from the Boston Conservatory and Wheaton College (IL).

    La memoire de berceuse adapts a simple, modal lullaby my wife and I sing to our daughter, interspersing a playful, frolicsome interlude between refrains.

  • ...un abîme au fond duquel se trouve toujours un pardon

    Erik Branch

    Erik Branch is a native of New York City, and received a BA and MA in Music (Composition) from Hunter College. He lives near Orlando, Florida, where he is active as a pianist, musical director, composer/arranger, opera chorister, and actor on stage and screen.

    "...un abîme au fond duquel se trouve toujours un pardon" is a quotation from the end of Balzac’s novel Une femme de trente ans: (“A mother’s heart is a fathomless deep where forgiveness is always found.”) The music takes a certain general inspiration from the quotation, but does not mirror or depict the situation in the novel.

  • ECEBA

    Emanuela Ballio

    Emanuela Ballio (Milan - Italy) At the age of 22 she graduated in Composition with top marks from "G.Verdi" Conservatory in Milan under the guidance of U.Rotondi. She awarded an advanced diploma in Composition with F.Donatoni at the "Accademia S.Cecilia" in Rome. She teaches Composition at "L.Marenzio" Conservatory of Brescia. She has obtained many honours both in international and national composers' competitions. Her works have been played in concerts and festivals all over the world.

    "ECEBA" The arabesque of tritone represents the request to affection of every child, the other lines represent the wealth of attention that every mother turns to her baby. All made with 5 notes: E(very) C(hild) E(very) B(aby) A(sks affection)

  • All the languages have the word 'tenderness'

    Inna Buganina

    Inna Buganina was born in 1967. Being a child she studied music at a children musical school. During a lifetime she worked as a teacher of drawing and a journalist. In recent years she started to compose music in classical manner for ensembles and orchestras. Inna lives in Ulyanovsk, Russia.

    All children need mother's tenderness. And all the languages have the word 'tenderness' and many words to express it. Music does too. In that little piece I tried to reveal tenderness and care the way I feel them. I think a flute is the right instrument to express this words.

  • Choro pra Minha Mãe

    Douglas DaSilva

    Douglas DaSilva is a composer, performer, educator and former Artistic Director of the Composer's Voice Concert Series and Premiere Salon Concerts in New York City. He composes in various styles including jazz, pop, chamber music and experimental. Much of his writing is influenced by Brazilian music and self-inflicted stress.

    I planned to compose a Brazilian choro in traditional form AABBACCA. However, the piece transforms: the Irish (my mother’s heritage) nurturing the Brazilian lyricism into something new! A metaphor for my genes? Perhaps, but mostly a homage to my mother!

  • There’s A Tree

    Tom Hamilton

    Tom Hamilton has been composing for over 50 years. He was a Fellow of the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, has received awards from the Prix Ars Electronica and The Absolute Sound, and has released 15 CDs of his work. He is a member of composer Robert Ashley's ensemble.

    “There’s A Tree” uses a simple mapping of letters to notes through an ordering much used by the composer. Written for Jackie, for our 15th wedding anniversary. The sequences are used to spell out the given names of various family members.

  • Two Mothers

    David Heinick

    David Heinick’s (born 1954) music has been performed throughout the United States and Europe, broadcast on NPR, the CBC, and the BBC, and included on recordings on the Albany Records and Clique Tracks labels. He teaches at the Crane School of Music at SUNY-Potsdam.

    The opening of Two Mothers recalls the joy of my wife (and me) when our daughter Susan arrived from Korea in 1986; through quotation of the Korean folk song Arirang, the ending reflects wistfully on her birth mother.

  • The boy and his mother

    Vladimir Karpenko

    Vladimir Karpenko (1958) was born in Ridder (East Kazakhstan), studied in Almaty conservatory. Now he lives in Irkutsk, Russia. Нe is the composer, the musicologist, the pianist, the teacher. The author of compositions for a symphonic orchestra, chorus, chamber ensembles, a piano, a organ, vocal music.

    “The boy and his mother”. Mother will come and will solve all problems.

  • Isaac Uses the Computer

    Jennifer Bernard Merkowitz

    Jennifer Bernard Merkowitz is a composer whose diverse inspirations include liturgical chant, basketball games, and the growth patterns of plants. She is Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Composition at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, where she lives with her husband David and son Isaac.

    Isaac Uses the Computer was inspired by my 15-month-old son’s interactions with my laptop. He “types” furiously, only to be reprimanded with beeps when he presses too many keys at once, which of course is part of the fun! This piece attempts to capture his joyfulness—and the beeps.

  • Hinase Hic enda Thu

    Albert HC Manders

    Amsterdam based flutist, composer and impresario Albert HC Manders grew up in Pittsburgh, PA where he earned a degree in Business and Anthropology. His compositions have been performed in the US, Netherlands, France and Spain. In the last few years he has studied contemporary flute with Anne Le Berge and Wil Offermans.

    Hebban olla vogala nestas hagunnan,
    hinase hic enda thu.
    Wat unbidan we nu?

    [earliest extant poem in Old-Dutch]

    “Have all birds started nests,
    except for me and you.
    What are we waiting for?”

  • "Inner Silence" for solo flute

    Troy Ramos

    Troy Ramos (b. 1975) composes new music using acoustic instruments and electronic sounds...sometimes together, sometimes not. His works are usually chamber ensemble size, but are increasingly being written for orchestra and soundtheatre. He has had works premiered and performed by Access Contemporary Music, Vox Novus, Classical Revolution and NACUSA.

    The work consists of three short sections. The process for creating this work was heavily influenced by Rainer Maria Rilke’s The Sonnets to Orpheus, no. 1. The title is taken from a translation of the poem, and reading the entire poem gives good insight into the creation of the work.

  • Playtime!

    Blair Whittington

    Blair Whittington is a Los Angeles based composer who concentrates on chamber and orchestral music. He studied composition with Byong-kon Kim and has worked for years as music librarian at the Brand Library in Glendale, California. His most recent award was the 2012 Composer’s Guild Grand Prize.

    Playtime! is a whimsical virtuosic flute piece meant to display a childlike sense of fun. It uses fragmentary passages as well as longer melodic lines and colorful high contrast. The piece begins with alternating folksong like and virtuosic passages and the piece ends with birdsong like passages.

  • A Mother's Blessing

    Christopher M. Wicks

    Christopher M. Wicks holds a MM in composition from the University of Montreal, and is a Fellow of the American Guild of Organists. He is organist, choral accompanist and bell choir director at Christ the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Salem, Oregon.

    How remarkable to see a call for scores about mothers. My mother has been a blessing to me in so many ways, so I call my piece "A Mother's Blessing." It is an example of the tonal music which I so rarely compose, but which my mother wishes that I would compose more often. It has echoes of the Scottish folk songs beloved by my maternal grandmother.