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Ora Uzel MM Composition       DePaul University (Chicago, IL) BA Music (composition, piano and percussion)       Central College (Pella, IA)

Ora is a music, fire, and performance artist as well as an amateur writer. With two degrees and two decades of music experience, she also has two years of performance art experience and one year of fire performance experience. Her current vision is to acquire the hardware, software, and knowledge necessary for DJ'ing and live production of electronic music, which may include any styling of music between the genres of electronic dance music (focus on psytrance) and contemporary electronic art music. Her goal is to infuse art music with some experiential aspects of electronic dance music subcultures and music as well as infusing electronic dance music with a gauged increase of theoretical complexity.

Ora's musical background includes 14 years of experience in piano, 12 years of experience in percussion (specializing in keyboard percussion), three summers traveling the US as part of a top twelve drum corps, and six years of music composition. Ora has traveled through 40 states and 10 countries, including a study abroad semester in London, England in 2001. She has a BA Music (magna cum laude with honors) from Central College in Pella, IA and a MM Composition (with distinction) from DePaul University in Chicago, IL. Ora has a significant portfolio of acoustic art music, but has gained interest in recent years in electronic music, both academic and popular.

In the past two years, Ora has been involved with conscious dance events, sacred celebrations, the Burner community here in Chicago (people who are not affiliated with, but share principles with Burning Man), the Chiowa (Chicago/Iowa) psytrance scene, and other local groupings of creative people and artists.

From these experiences in communities, most of which are centered around electronic dance music (EDM), Ora has sampled a diverse selection of creative and socially conscious cultures and communities. Over that time, a theory of the three aspects of ecstatic music has revealed itself: A) physical stimulation via rhythm, B) intellectual stimulation via frequency (pitch, timbre, and texture), C) spiritual stimulation via form (phrasing).

Ora's influences and inspirations include an unusual combination of sounds from varied genres and time periods. This list is always growing and changing. Her influences and inspirations include: Danny Elfman, Nobuo Uematsu, Bjork, Igor Stravinsky, Star Trek Astral Symphony (Jerry Goldsmith et al), Sergei Rachmaninoff, Infected Mushroom, Gyorgy Ligeti, Wichdokta (DJ), Dead Can Dance, Enya, Olivier Messiaen, Antonio Vivaldi, Scriabin, John McLaughlin's Shakti, Anoushka Shankar, Claude Debussy, Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, Psymbolic (distributor), suomisaundi (Finnish psytrance), dark psytrance, Bela Bartok, Shpongle, Nirvana, Värttinä, Karl Jenkins, Scott Joplin, Alanis Morissette, George Gershwin, gamelan music, and other various sources.