About Gala

Gala Flagello (b. 1994) is a composer, educator, and nonprofit director whose music has been described as “both flesh and spirit, intensely psychological without sacrificing concrete musical enjoyment” (I Care If You Listen). She is the Festival Director and co-founder of the nonprofit contemporary music festival Connecticut Summerfest.

 

Gala was selected as a 2023 Composition Fellow at Tanglewood Music Center, a 2022–2023 Composer Fellow at the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, and a 2022 Composition Fellow at Aspen Music Festival. She was awarded the Musicians Club of Women Gerts and Hammond Award (First Prize, 2022 Composition Competition) and was commissioned by Hub New Music to write The Bird-While, a concerto for Hub New Music and symphonic winds that was premiered in March 2023 by Michael Haithcock and the University of Michigan Symphony Band. Other recent commissions include works for "The President's Own" United States Marine Band, the Albany Symphony, the Virginia Tech Wind Ensemble, the Peabody Essex Museum, the University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club, and the Young New Yorkers’ Chorus. Recent accolades include the 2021 Composer Residency at Promenade Opera Project, first prize in the 2020 Sinta Quartet Composition Competition, and the 2020 Michigan Music Teachers Association Commissioned Composer Prize.

 

Gala is committed to forging ties with performers and educators alike through intricate collaborative projects. Some of these include Educational New Music for Developing Voices (2017), The Contemporary Solo Horn (2018), and the web premiere events for her wind quintet Matriarch (2020) and saxophone quartet Dabble (2022), each supported by the University of Michigan’s Excellence in Entrepreneurship, Career Empowerment & Leadership (EXCEL) Lab. Her Self-Talk was written for Vanguard Reed Quintet who premiered the piece at National Sawdust in 2018 and included it on their debut album, Red Leaf Collection. In 2021, Gala collaborated with choreographer Sean Hoskins on in private public, a work combining her fixed media piece Aleathea with dance footage and live dancers to explore distance, fragility, and perspective.

 

Gala strives to use music as a vehicle for social change, frequently engaging with topics such as environmental advocacy, gender equity, and mental health in her work. In January 2021, she participated in the Georgia Run-Off Commissioning Project, raising funds for the senate campaigns of Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. Other recent projects speaking to these issues include commissions from Diversify the Stand; bassoonist Joseph Swift for his album Room to Breathe; mezzo-soprano Samantha Williams for her theatrical song cycle American Patriots which investigates the concept of the American Dream; and Latitude 49 for their Bagatelles Project in support of the Coalition for African Americans in the Performing Arts. Gala is a two-time collaborator of DAMET Percussion, writing Precious Metals and Fragile Goods for Natural Beauty, a multimedia touring show that examines humans’ impact on our environment. She and DAMET founder, Danielle Gonzalez, also co-hosted the podcast Music & Mindset, a series addressing mental health for musicians in the categories of mind, body, and spirit.

 

Gala is a passionate educator in the classroom, privately, and as a guest lecturer. She is enthusiastic to help students grow a seed of an idea into a full-length piece, examine repertoire from Saint-Georges to Saariaho, and incorporate non-musical elements such as visual art and technology into their work. Gala maintains a private studio of composition students at the high school and collegiate level. She has been engaged to speak on composition, orchestration, arts administration, and entrepreneurship at institutions such as The Hartt School, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Virginia Tech, Heidelberg University, and Central Connecticut State University. In winter 2024, she and Hub New Music Executive Director Michael Avitabile will co-teach the course Commissioning and Collaboration Basics at the University of Michigan.

 

Gala holds a Bachelor of Music in Composition degree from The Hartt School, a Master of Music in Composition degree from the University of Michigan, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Michigan, where she was awarded the Dorothy Greenwald Graduate Fellowship. Gala’s works are self-published, with select works published by independent, eco-friendly publisher Just a Theory Press.

 

Gala pronounces her name GAL-uh Flah-JEL-oh.