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photo: Marzena Hans / Ajem

photo: Marzena Hans / Ajem

ABOUT  

MonikaHenry-187.jpg

photo: Marzena Hans / Ajem Stories

Monika Dalach Sayers is a composer, sound designer, and multimedia artist based in London, UK. She specialises in contemporary classical music and experimental sound making. 

Her music refers to broad references of pop culture and addresses a range of current and social issues including environmental pollution with textile and plastic waste, and societal issues towards women. Her approach to making music is driven by research and sound experimentation with the aim to develop cutting-edge and thought-provoking projects. In her compositional practice, she works with acoustic, electro-acoustic, and electronic music, seeking new hybrid forms of musical expression cutting across art genres by confronting traditional ensemble scoring against electronics, performative elements, text, and video. Her various interests manifest in fields of music, text, and moving image and her compositions are often complemented by each. She aims to deliver projects that are cutting-edge, innovative, and exciting. 

In 2024 Monika was appointed to the London Symphony Orchestra Panufnik Composers Scheme to write for symphony orchestra. Monika completed a Master's in Classical Composition at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, studying composition with Malcolm Singer, and dramatic writing with Dr. Stephen Plaice. In 2015, she graduated from The Academy of Music in Lodz with a Bachelor's in Classical Composition, studying composition with Dr. Olga Hans. Also in 2015, she graduated from The University of Lodz with a Bachelor's in Creative Writing & Cultural Studies. For two years in a row, across 2017/2018 and 2018/2019, Monika was awarded an Artist Fellowship in Classical Composition and Dramatic Writing at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. In 2019, she completed the Opera Making and Writing course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in Association with The Royal Opera House in London. In 2020, she completed the Experimental Video and Moving Image Course at London College and Communication.

Monika also took part in contemporary music courses such as Next Generation at the Donaueschinger Musiktage in Germany (2017), International Summer Courses for New Music Darmstadt in Germany (2018), and International Summer Courses for Composers Synthetis in Radziejowice, Poland (2015,2016). She has participated in masterclasses with Alexander Schubert, Johannes Kreidler, Mark Andre, Ashley Fure, Stefan Prins, Marco Stroppa, Ramon Lazkano, Julian Anderson, Agata Zubel, and Zygmunt Krauze.

Monika Dalach has written music for Plus-Minus Ensemble (UK), EXAUDI Ensemble (UK), Workers Union Ensemble (UK), Trio Layers (Poland), Ensemble Kompopolex (Poland), TWOgether Duo (Poland). She has worked in collaboration with independent artists including choreographers Ruby Frances Jones (USA) and Stephanie Handiijska (Bulgaria); moving image artists Liza Gusarova and Vera Romanova (Russia/UK); pianist Felix Nagl (Germany); marimbist Ewelina Hajda (Poland); dancers Enzo Pauchet (France), Constance Diard (France), Fang-Yun Yang (Taiwan); photographer Maja Ngom (Poland/UK); librettists Oge Nwosu (UK) and Leo Doulton (UK). Monika has collaborated with workshOPERA at the London Transport Museum project "SoundTracks". She wrote an original soundtrack to the live dance performance "9.81", an interdisciplinary project that premiered in 2015 at the Szwalnia Theatre in Lodz.

Her music has been played and commissioned by contemporary music festivals such as Heroines of Sound, Warsaw Autumn Festival - International Festival of Contemporary Music, Sacrum Profanum Festival, International Summer Courses for New Music Darmstadt, Musica Privata Festival, Musica Moderna Festival, including venues such as the Wigmore Hall London, The Place, London Transport Museum, Milton Court Concert Hall, City University in London, The Arthur Rubinstein Philharmonic in Lodz, The Warsaw Philharmonic, Collegium Novum/the Jagiellonian University in Crakow and Indiana University during the Composers' Forum.

Her music was featured on the New Music Show on BBC Radio 3.

In 2018 she was awarded an  Artistic Scholarship of the Marshal of the City of Lodz in Composition. Whilst a student, Monika was a winner of the prestigious Witold Lutoslawski Scholarship awarded by Witold Lutoslawski's Society (2016) and was awarded Guildhall School's Tracy Chadwell Prize (2017). She is a winner of The Pulse of Literature Festival Prize for the New Dramatic Play - Dinner for Two (2015). She was one of five finalists in the USA International Composition Contest for a harp solo piece (2016). She has also received the following awards and prizes: 1st prize at the Little Symphony Competition organized by the Academy of Music in Lodz for Pandora (2014), 2nd Prize at the 56th Tadeusz Baird Competition for Young Composers organized by the Association of the Polish Composers (2015), and 3rd Prize at the National Competition for Electroacoustic Composition organized by the Oskar Kolberg's Philharmonic in Kielce, Poland (2014).

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