Mirna Lekić, pianoMirage
MIRAGE is a collection of sonic illusions, allusions, and transformations that celebrate the piano’s unique capability to imitate, echo and morph into other instruments. These compositions reveal and free a broad spectrum of sounds inherent in the instrument, inviting it to take on the roles of a traveler and a polyglot. The collection provides both a path to deepening our relationship with the piano and an opportunity to examine its place within a wider musical sphere. The album title points to the illusive and elusive aspects of the various transformative processes and their results, as well as to the ongoing conversation between tradition and innovation in the never-ending search for the many possibilities the instrument has to offer.
Born and raised in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mirna Lekić is a pianist and educator living in New York City. She plays a wide range of repertoire that reflects her interests in intercultural music, historical performance practice, and contemporary works. As a recitalist and chamber musician she has performed in the United States, Canada and Europe, at venues including Carnegie-Weill Hall, Symphony Space, Chicago Cultural Center, St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London, Théâtre de l’Ile Saint-Louis in Paris, and the Hall of the St. Petersburg Union of Composers and the Gorki Leninskiye Museum in Russia. Her performances are featured on Centaur and Romeo Records and have been broadcast on WQXR, WNYC, WFMT, WPRB and Bosnian TV and radio stations.
Mirna is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, the Mannes School of Music, and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where she earned a doctorate with a dissertation focusing on the music of Claude Debussy. She currently serves as an Associate Professor of Music at Queensborough Community College - City University of New York, and as Associate Faculty in Piano at Columbia University.