The Department of Music is pleased to announce the appointment of Elizabeth Ogonek as Assistant Professor of Composition, starting in July 2021. Ogonek has been Assistant Professor of Composition at Oberlin Conservatory since 2015, and her music has been commissioned and performed by some of the world’s top orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony, the Toronto Symphony, the LA Philharmonic, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, among others.
In 2015, Ogonek was appointed to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as one of its Mead Composers-in-Residence, a position which she held alongside Samuel Adams until 2018. During her tenure with the CSO, she was commissioned to write three new works and was also responsible for co-curating MusicNOW, the orchestra’s new music series, which brought together CSO musicians with composers to explore the music of today as well as influential works of the 20th century. Ogonek’s work has been recognized by the ASCAP Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Royal Philharmonic Society, and the Ohio Arts Council.
Ogonek says she is looking forward to being a part of Cornell's "rich history of educating and supporting some of the foremost thinkers, creators, and performers of music," further elaborating: "When I think about the years ahead, I'm filled with tremendous excitement by the invitation to help envision a department that reflects the breadth of new music today, that supports the creation, dissemination, and discussion of that music and that encourages wild and imaginative collaborations."
Born in Anoka, Minnesota and raised in New York City, Ogonek's primary teachers included Don Freund, Claude Baker, Michael Gandolfi, Donald Crockett, Stephen Hartke and Julian Anderson. A former Beinecke and Marshall Scholar, she holds degrees from Indiana University, Jacobs School of Music (BM, 2009), the University of Southern California, Thornton School of Music (MM, 2012) and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (DMus, 2017).
