Mika Pelo

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 currently Associate Professor of Composition at UC Davis. His principal composition teachers include Tristan Murail, Bent Sørensen, and Sven-David Sandström.

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 thinks 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.”