Short Bio
Monika Gurak is an award-winning composer, songwriter and pianist.
Monika loves writing music with words, be they pop songs, art songs or opera. She writes in three languages: English, Polish and Spanish. In 2021, she was named the winner of the Canadian category of the Arcady-RBC Emerging Composer Competition for her art song “Hope is…”, which can be found on her debut album I Love You Like Spain. In 2016, she was named a semi-finalist of the International Songwriting Competition for her lyrics "Day and Night People".
Monika delights in composing for piano, since this is her main instrument. These are compositions for piano solo, for piano duo and for the piano in collaboration with other instruments, as well as voice. In 2021, she was named a finalist of Classic Pure Vienna Composition Competition and Cum Laude Music Awards for her piece for piano four hands “Romance Sonámbulo”, which is available on her sophomore album Scenes From A Life.
Monika received a bronze medal in the category of classical for her I Love You Like Spain album, two silver medals in the categories of new release and composer for her Scenes From A Life album, two bronze medals in the categories of pop and lyrics/songwriter for her There's Always a First Time EP, two bronze medals in the categories of pop and album for her Wiedz O Tym, Że album and a silver medal in the category of album for her Sketches album at the Global Music Awards.
Apart from lyric writing, Monika enjoys writing prose. She published a few articles about music in Hispano-American literature and Heitor Villa-Lobos.
She graduated from the University of Toronto, as well as the York University, where she studied music composition. She also holds a certificate in songwriting from Berklee Online. In addition, Monika is an alumna of the Institute of Iberian and Ibero-American Studies, University of Warsaw.