Michael Gatonska is a composer whose compositions have been performed by large and small ensembles in Europe, Australia, India, South America and across the United States. Praised by critics for his “warm masterful orchestration,” “imaginative textures” and “exceptional stunning moments,” he has been described as a composer with “a gift that commands respect and attention.”    His music has been performed by the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, the Hartford Symphony, the Pacific Symphony, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Ossia Symphony Orchestra, the Krakow Radio Orchestra, Talea Ensemble, string quartet DAFO (Poland), the HSO Cello Quartet and at the Krakow International Composers Festival, the Mosaico Music Festival (Poland), the Teagu Festival of Contemporary Music (South Korea), the MATA Festival, the CSN New Music Festival, the Kosciuszko Foundation Chamber Music Series and the New Britain Museum of American Art among others.  He has twice been selected to participate in the Minnesota Orchestra Reading Sessions & Composer Institute.   The recipient of many awards for his compositions, Gatonska has enjoyed  fellowship and grant awards from the Civitella Ranieri Center, two Post-Graduate Research Fellowships from the Kosciuszko Foundation to study music composition in Poland, ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, the American Music Center, Meet the Composer, the American Composers Forum, the Roberts Foundation, the Paul Underwood/ ACO Commission, the MATA Festival 2003 Commission, the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Field and he is a MacDowell Colony Fellow.  In 2009 he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in the Field of Arts by the Connecticut Valley Education Foundation.   Conductors Marin Alsop, Osmo Vanska, Carl St. Clair, Brad Lubman, Paul Lustig Dunkel and other new music champions have performed his works and he has composed solo and chamber music for many performers and ensembles, including the pianist/performer Kathleen Supove, the E-cellist Jeffrey Krieger and for the flutist Paul Lustig Dunkel. His music has been recorded on the Albany Records, Einstein Records and Major Who labels.   Gatonska studied music composition with Krzystof Penderecki, Marek Stachowski, and Zbigniew Bujarski at the Academy of Music in Krakow, Poland, and with Elias Tanenbaum at the Manhattan School of Music.