Composition Faculty
Dr. Maria Kaoutzani
Assistant Professor of Music (Composition)
Website: mariakaoutzani.com
Maria Kaoutzani is an Illinois-based composer from Limassol, Cyprus. Recent projects include a concerto for the Grammy-winning ensemble Eighth Blackbird and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, a residency at Hartford Women Composers Festival in 2023, a National Sawdust residency in the 2019-20 season, Pomegranate Institute and UCLA's Notes on Napkins, Hocket ensemble's #What2020SoundsLike, "Chicago Speaks" with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and residencies at Anderson Center for the Arts and Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild. Past collaborators include the ~Nois saxophone quartet, Chartreuse trio, Desdemona string quartet, Zafa Collective, Rubiks Collective, Longleash trio, Imani Winds, the Grossman ensembles and many others.
Maria holds a PhD in music composition at the University of Chicago, a master's degree from New York University and a bachelor's degree from the University of York. Along with composers Gemma Peacocke and Shelley Washington, she is a founding member of composer collective Kinds of Kings.
Dr. Konstantinos Karathanasis is a Professor of Composition and Music Technology at the University of Oklahoma School of Music, and a Stavros Niarchos Foundation Fellow for 2020. He writes music for fixed media (both acousmatic and soundscape), instruments and live electronics, and mixed media. He has also collaborated with visual artists to create sound installations and multimedia compositions. He draws inspiration from Poetry, Artistic cinema, Abstract painting, Mysticism, Greek Philosophy, Mythology, and the writings of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell.
His electroacoustic compositions received awards in international competitions, such as Bourges (France), SEAMUS/ASCAP (USA), SIME (France) and Musica Viva (Czech Republic). He has been performed throughout the world at such festivals as the International Computer Music Conference, the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, the International Confederation of Electroacoustic Music annual conference, the International Electronic Music Festival SYNTHESE in Bourges, France; the MUSICACOUSTICA festival in Beijing, China, the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik in Witten, Germany; the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival in Gainesville; in several annual conferences of the Society for the ElectroAcoustic Music in the United States; the Musica Viva festival in Lisbon, Portugal; the European Sound and Music Computing; the Bienal Internacional de Musica Electroacustica in Sao Paolo; the Seoul International Computer Music Festival; the Australasian Computer Music Conference; and in numerous juried electroacoustic music concerts worldwide.
Recordings of his music are released by SEAMUS, ICMA, Musica Nova, Innova and HELMCA. He has been invited to give lectures on his music and concerts at the Contemporary Music & Research Center, Athens, Greece; University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK; Lewis University, Chicago IL; Ionian University, Corfu, Greece; University of Texas, Austin TX; MACCM at Bowling Green State University, OH; Tulsa University, Tulsa, OK; Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK; Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ; University of Utah at Salt Lake City, UT; University of Central Missouri at Warrensburg, MO; University of North Texas at Denton, TX; Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea; Oklahoma City University, OKC, OK; University of Athens, Greece.
Dr. Karathanasis has been elected twice as the Vice President for Membership of the Society for Electroacoustic Music in the US (SEAMUS). He directs the OU School of Music Computer Music Studio and the Music Technology curriculum.
- Ph.D. University at Buffalo (2006)
- B.M. Ionian University, Corfu Greece (1999)
- Piano Diploma, National Conservatory, Athens, Greece (1995)
Dr. Marvin L. Lamb is Professor Emeritus at OU. Dr. Lamb was formerly the Henry Zarrow Presidential Professor of Music Composition and former Dean of the Weitzenhoffer Family College of Fine Arts at OU. Lamb's compositions have been performed widely in Europe, North and South America and Japan. Lamb has been featured on PBS broadcasts in New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas and has received commissions from the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, the New York Chamber Orchestra and the Idaho Symphony Orchestra. His works have been performed by the Czech National Symphony, the Orchestra del Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina, as well as the Atlanta, Dallas, Knoxville and St. Louis symphony orchestras, the New York Chamber Orchestra, the Cabrillo Music Festival Orchestra, the U.S. Army Band and the Nashville Contemporary Brass Quintet. Lamb has received fellowships and teaching awards from ASCAP, the Mellon Foundation, Meet the Composer, the Texas Composers Forum, the Tennessee Arts Commission and the National Science Foundation. He has twice received composition fellowships to the Charles Ives Center for American Music. Lamb's vocal, chamber and electronic music is published principally by Carl Fischer and is included in the Fleisher Collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia. His music is recorded on The Saxophone Alone by concert artist Neal Ramsay, Music from the Meadows (Redwood Records), The University of New Mexico Brass Ouintet (Crystal CD), Heavy Metal (Mark Records), and Paul Freeman Introduces... (Albany CD). Lamb's articles concerning arts education policy, new music and new music ensembles have appeared in numerous jouirnals. As an arts consultant, Lamb has served in a leadership capacity for educational organizations at the state, regional and national levels, including as a senior evaluator for the National Association of Schools of Music. Before coming to the University of Oklahoma, Lamb was Dean and Yeager Professor of Music at the School of Music of Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
- BM (Theory & Composition) - Sam Houston State University
- MM (Theory & Composition) - University of North Texas
- DMA (Composition & Performance) - University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
