Education In his undergraduate career, Gjeilo studied at the Norwegian Academy of Music (1999-2001), transferred to the Juilliard School (2001), and studied at the Royal College of Music, London (2002-2004) to receive a bachelor's degree in composition. Those interested in choral music in crossover styles will find a distinctive take on that new tradition here. Olas albums include Ola Gjeilo on the Decca Classics label, a portrait of his choral and piano works featuring Tenebrae and Voces8. Background Ola Gjeilo was born on May 5, 1978, to Inge and Anne-May Gjeilo, and grew up in Skui, Norway. He writes choral music, and has written for piano and wind symphony, publishing through Walton Music, Edition Peters, and Boosey and Hawkes. The performances by the top-notch choirs Tenebrae and Voces8 are superb. Ola Gjeilo is a Norwegian composer and pianist, living in the United States. The utter simplicity of Gjeilo's music here matches the words, but there is nothing derivative about either of them. Ola’s concert works are performed all over the world, and his debut recording as a pianist-composer, the lyrical crossover album Stone Rose, was released in 2007, followed by its 2012 sequel, Piano Improvisations, both on the 2L label. Perhaps the most effective piece here, and a place to start sampling, is Tundra (track nine), a setting of a text by Charles Anthony Silvestri depicting a slice of Norwegian landscape. Ola Gjeilo (pronounced Yay-lo) was born in Norway in 1978, and moved to the United States in 2001 to begin his composition studies at the Juilliard School in New York City. Gjeilo's music is economical and not pompous in the least. How you feel about these models may determine your reaction to Gjeilo, but there's no doubt that he welds these semi-popular styles together skillfully: a piece may begin with a pop piano introduction (played by Gjeilo himself) and then recede to choral melodic material in a chantlike vein. Sheet music of the entire Decca Classics 'Night' album Read more. Ola Gjeilo piano book Night released April 1st, 2020. Decca single release featuring Tenebrae and Thomas Gould Read more.
Other pieces lean more toward Philip Glass, and yet others toward a cappella music in John Rutter's more artless vein. Ola Gjeilo new single Luminous Night May 10th, 2020. (New York is probably not a top market for the genre), but the sacred pieces here contain passages that evoke the so-called praise & worship music within that genre, with light choral polyphony over a backdrop of piano and/or strings. It's not clear how much contemporary Christian music he might have absorbed while in the U.S. The young Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo (say YAY-lo) studied at the Juilliard School and has lived in New York and Italy.