Wendy Durrwachter
is a composer of contemporary classical acoustic music completing an indefinite residency at the headwaters of the largest fresh water deposit on earth, the Great Lakes. Durrwachter spent childhood summers on extended camping trips near the waters of the Laurentian Mixed Forest Province bordering the US Midwest and Canada - including some lengthy trips paddling the Quetico/Boundary Waters Canoe Area and backpacking Isle Royale, and Porcupine Mountains. Time in the north woods left flood basalt deposits on her interpretative lens during adolescence. Durrwachter continued years of following highways of gnarled tree-roots; recipes; exemplary vintages; iron magnets; gnomes; squires; faeries; shepherds; ferrymen; and wickered wind-patterns - leading ultimately to Duluth, Minnesota.
Durrwachter was awarded an Arrowhead Regional Arts Council Career Development Grant in 2019 to compose a divertimento for wind quintet performed by the University of Minnesota Duluth Faculty Wind Quintet at Weber Music Hall. Commisioned by the Chequamegon Symphony Orchestra, her first symphony CHEQUAMEGON BAY will be performed October 2020 (TBD) 7:30pm at Alvord Theater Northland College in Ashland, WI.
is a composer of contemporary classical acoustic music completing an indefinite residency at the headwaters of the largest fresh water deposit on earth, the Great Lakes. Durrwachter spent childhood summers on extended camping trips near the waters of the Laurentian Mixed Forest Province bordering the US Midwest and Canada - including some lengthy trips paddling the Quetico/Boundary Waters Canoe Area and backpacking Isle Royale, and Porcupine Mountains. Time in the north woods left flood basalt deposits on her interpretative lens during adolescence. Durrwachter continued years of following highways of gnarled tree-roots; recipes; exemplary vintages; iron magnets; gnomes; squires; faeries; shepherds; ferrymen; and wickered wind-patterns - leading ultimately to Duluth, Minnesota.
Durrwachter was awarded an Arrowhead Regional Arts Council Career Development Grant in 2019 to compose a divertimento for wind quintet performed by the University of Minnesota Duluth Faculty Wind Quintet at Weber Music Hall. Commisioned by the Chequamegon Symphony Orchestra, her first symphony CHEQUAMEGON BAY will be performed October 2020 (TBD) 7:30pm at Alvord Theater Northland College in Ashland, WI.
EDUCATION:
Durrwachter studied piano fifteen childhood years with Bishop Michael Bent in Green Bay, Wisconsin. She attended summer piano academies at University of Wisconsin, Whitewater; and Indiana University, Bloomington. Durrwachter had the privilege to study piano performance with Duncan McNab and orchestration / composition with Judith Lang Zaimont at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in piano and composition - 2000.
