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Andy Stenz Photography (andystenz.com)

Andy Stenz Photography (andystenz.com)

Thomas Alexander Otto Goedecke (PhD, Music Composition), based on Maui, Hawaiʻi, is most known for his work intersecting sound worlds from western and Pacific non-western voices. He specifically finds joy in working with indigenous languages of the Pacific and combining them with traditionally western ensembles, advocating for the proliferation and celebration of Polynesian, Asia-Pacific, and American indigenous art.

Goedecke has composed for a wide variety of ensembles including Nā Wai Chamber Choir, a treble ensemble dedicated to the preservation, propagation, and innovation of Hawaiian choral music; Ke Aloha Pau ʻOle of Central Union Church; Duo Yumeno who performed Turtle and Crane for koto and cello; Pro Musica Nipponia, who performed A Space Between for shakuhachi, koto, and shamisen; Ji-young Yi, the preeminent master of gayageum performance; TILT Ensemble who premiered The Girl from the West for electric guitar and piano in Uzzano, Italy in 2016; the Honolulu Chorale who premiered Kali Loa Ko e Taki Maama in 2015 as a winner of their Composer Competition; and Los Robles Master Chorale, who performed his choral piece Yamabiko written for the one year anniversary of the Tohoku tsunami and earthquake, winning LRMC's Young Composer's Competition in 2012. He has studied composition with Michael Remson while in Houston, with Frank Ticheli, Stephen Hartke, Morten Lauridson and Veronika Krausas while earning his Bachelor's of Music at the University of Southern California, and with Donald Womack, Thomas Osborne, and Takuma Itoh at the University of Hawai'i.

He currently enjoys his time singing and composing on the island of Maui in Hawai'i where both he and his wife, Katrina, teach.