Bryan Kostors

Bryan Curt Kostors is a composer of diverse and evocative music for orchestra, electronics, band, choir, chamber groups, soloists, film, multimedia, and dance. The drastic and contrasting landscapes of the American West – desert, basin and range, high mountain peaks, ocean coast – play a prominent role in Kostors’ music. A central element of Bryan’s work is the exploration of how place affects sound, visuals, and emotional interpretation, and how the history, landscape, or social aspects of a given geography can be used to create artworks that speak to a wide and varied audience. The analysis of time – in terms of stasis, temporal perception, and the juxtaposition of linear and nonlinear narratives – is a central element of much of Kostors’ current research and work, exploring the understandings we have of musical forms and structures from the perspective of unique and independent listeners, performers, and composers.

Kostors has studied with Don Crockett, Frank Ticheli, Stephen Hartke, Sean Friar, Virko Baley, and Stephen Michael Newby. He is an active music educator, currently teaching composition and electronic music at the University of Montana. Kostors’ music has been performed internationally, with highlights including: Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA with Clairobscur Dance; by piano duo Hocket; the USC Symphony Orchestra; percussionist Brandon Bell in Houston, Texas; the USC Wind Ensemble; What’s Next? Ensemble in Los Angeles; the Downey Symphony Orchestra with conductor Sharon Lavery; members of the Wuhan Philharmonic in Wuhan, China; members of the Argus Quartet at the Hear Now Festival in Los Angeles; Nextet Ensemble at the University of Nevada Las Vegas; with Clairobscur Dance in San Fransisco and New York; and in numerous film scores and visual music pieces.