Madeline Styskal, piano

🇺🇸 USA

Madeline Styskal (b. 1995) is always exploring fresh ways to combine her interests in music and citizen diplomacy, whether through composing, performing, curating, or researching. Currently she is pursuing a doctorate in musicology at the University of Texas at Austin (UT), from which she obtained an M.M. in composition (2022) studying under Yevgeniy Sharlat. She is the curator of SoundProof, a new music exchange project connecting Texan and Russian composers and performers of UT and the Moscow Conservatory, which began as a virtual exchange in 2020.

Some of her collaborations include a commission by the Kingwood Park High School Chamber Orchestra in 2016; the Veteran's Songbook Project with HGO Community, Grace After Fire, and local female veterans in 2017; and 2020/23 theatrical-musical production "The Women Have Something to Say," directed by Nicole Kenley-Miller, which premiered on the Kennedy Center's Digital Stage in 2020 and has been produced at MATCH in Houston and The Cell Theatre in NYC. Her latest soundscapes album, "Kommunalka: a thin-walled memory palace in sound" (2022) focuses on creating spatial narratives through evocation and construction of personal and collective sonic memories.

She holds an artist's certificate in composition studies with Vladimir Tarnopolsky from the Moscow State Conservatory (2019-20), and a bachelor's in composition from the Moores School of Music, where she studied with Robert Smith and David Ashley White. Instruction in piano performance under Dr. Jennifer Novak, Dr. Tali Morgulis, and Dr. Mikhail Dubov have kept her inspired.