Owens' music is unique. Refusing to accept limitations or create the expected, her music fits in with neither the "Uptown" or "Downtown" scenes.
To describe her music as classical, minimalist or experimental completely falls short of the mark. When pressed, one could refer to it as "concert music," meaning that you are unlikely to hear it at Madison Square Garden or Brixton. It partners well with Carnegie Recital Hall or a more intimate space like BargeMusic.
She described it as the "Resonant Continuum" and felt that Rilke's phrase "Audible Landscape" described it well.
In a good concert hall, the music envelops the listener like a gentle breeze -- or the sudden appearance of the Aurora Borealis in a most unexpected place.
Her poetry and her translations of the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke is embedded in the fabric of the music in many recent pieces. The words are spoken either by a narrator or by the instrumentalists themselves.
Titles and narration of many of her compositions are inspired by astrophysics and the physics of light. Two recent pieces in that genre are "Ancient Fire" for two pianos and "Cellestial Music: Book I: The Facts of Light" for cello and narrator.
Owens is a Yamaha Artist and was nominated for the Van Cliburn Commission 2005. She has received many awards and prizes including First Prize in the Miriam Gideon Competition for her chamber work "Messages for Raoul Wallenberg" and finalist in the Whitney Museum Two Piano Festival for "Pianophoria 3." Her music has been widely performed in Europe, the Far East, the U.S. and Canada, most recently in New York City, Spain, Portugal, Dubai, Turkey, The Netherlands and Tokyo.
