Elena Doria Winell (b. 1998) is a composer, performer, and educator. They draw on a wide range of interdisciplinary influences to create deeply intense, personal, and multi-dimensional works via processes of intense collaboration with the intended performers. Her compositions have been described as “fundamentally dramatic" [Out to Lunch Records] and having an “expansive spirit” [Boston Musical Intelligencer], and have been performed by such luminaries as JACK Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble, Vimbayi Kaziboni, Olivia Katz, & Felix Fan.

Some of their musical projects include being one-half of the duo Beyond the Zero, as well as the founder and co-artistic director of Der Gestanke, a Boston-based Pierrot ensemble with Rose Hegele, with whom she performs and for whom she regularly writes. Some past performance highlights include singing Pierrot lunaire by Arnold Schoenberg with Der Gestanke, as well as performing with musical figures as wide-ranging as Karita Mattila to John Wetton to Butch Trucks.

Elena’s approach to teaching is focused on tailoring lessons to help students achieve their individual musical goals. They are passionate about helping students develop their technique, navigate new ways of thinking and talking about music, and finding their own unique voices while having fun with the process. Lessons are offered in composition as well as voice, piano, and guitar for people of all musical levels. Tutoring sessions are offered in harmony, counterpoint, orchestration, and ear training. Their experience in music education spans over a decade of private instruction in piano of all genres, rock/jazz guitar, and voice both contemporary and operatic.

Elena is currently pursuing their Masters of Music in Composition at the Peabody Institute at The Johns Hopkins University. She earned her BM in Composition from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee studying with Felipe Lara, Tina Tallon, Curtis K. Hughes, and Marc McAneny. Scroll down for contact information! Those looking for score samples can also head to the Contact Me page form.

upcoming/recent events

• May 1st, 2025 7:30pm Premiere of scraps - a miniature song cycle based on text from Emily Dickinson’s envelope poems for loadbang at Griswold Hall, Peabody Institute, Baltimore, MD.

• December 9th, 2024 3pm Premiere of excerpts from The Cask of Amontillado - a chamber opera in five scenes at Griswold Hall, Peabody Institute, Baltimore, MD.

• November 30th, 2024 6pm Der Gestanke in Recital: Duos - Arts at the Armory Café, Somerville, MA. Featuring the music of Sofia Gubaidulina, Asha Srinivasan, Max Eidinoff, Horatiu Radulescu, and Thomas Feng; with world premieres by Daniel Nerger, Brian Stuligross, and Olivia Katz.

• November 10th, 2024 3pm Premiere of The Little Red Hen - a chamber opera in four scenes and two intermezzi at Joe Byrd Hall, Peabody Institute, Baltimore, MD. Starring Rose Hegele, conducted by Jonathan Villegas, featuring members of Der Gestanke as well as students and alumni of the Peabody Institute.

• September 25th, 2024 7pm Premiere of Avec la Gomme sextet for International Contemporary Ensemble at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center, Washington, D.C.

• March 2nd, 2024 Der Gestanke performs Joan Tower’s Petroushskates and Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire at First Parish Church United in Westford, MA. Featuring performers Elena Winell, Rose Hegele, Hannah Elizabeth Tobias, Walter Yee, Brian Stuligross, Enrique Hernandez de Tejada III, and Daniel Nerger.

• February 8th, 2024 World premiere of Grand Guignol for string quartet by JACK Quartet at Griswold Hall, Peabody Institute, Baltimore, MD.

Avec la Gomme

for mixed sextet. Premiered by International Contemporary Ensemble on September 25th, 2024 as part of Polyaspora Festival: "The Future is Now Part 2”

The title is taken from the original French-language version of this quote often attributed to Igor Stravinsky: "Le compositeur travaille avec la gomme." [The composer works with the eraser.] In understanding I wanted to write very fast music for this, I realized generative processes like isorhythm and pitch-serialization, used in tandem, would be the ideal method. Thus, I began the piece by writing out all the expressions of the isorhythmic-row I wanted to use in order in every instrument and then erased and shaped from there.

Grand Guignol

for String Quartet. This piece operates in extremities. As such, it was named for the historic Parisian theater, Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol (The Theater of the Great Puppet) - known more commonly as Grand Guignol - previously located in the Pigalle district from 1897 until its closing in 1962. The theater specialized in naturalistic horror shows, and today the term is used to describe graphic, amoral horror entertainment. The piece is a love letter to several works that fall under the umbrella term. Written for and premiered by the illustrious JACK Quartet on February 8th, 2024 at Griswold Hall, Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD.

blood…all over my hands

for Pierrot ensemble with voice and percussion. A collage of expressions of madness throughout poetry, music, literature, and theater, presented as a path with dangerous curves. This piece was written during the first half of 2023, in which over 540 anti-Queer bills were introduced in state legislatures across the US, and, as such, is an expression of personal as well as political rage. Performed by Der Gestanke.

reaching towards, reaching from

for Pierrot Ensemble

The general progression of the piece is betrayed by its title in that the music is constantly reaching both towards and from A4, eventually becoming totally consumed by it. The form consists of the strophe, which is expository; the antistrophe, which is reactionary; and the epode, which acts to summarize and juxtapose the two. Each are imbued with non-linear presentations of the particular materials. Performed by Der Gestanke.

A Reading from the Gospel of Thomas

for two sopranos, violin, cello, & piano (2022)

Text excerpted from Gnostic Gospels. This piece documents the composer's personal re-evaluation of Christian mysticism - from viewing all Christianity as an ideology inextricably linked with American Fascism to seeing the varied strata and even finding the foundations of Universalist Liberation Theology. Performed by Avery Richards, Chloe Gardner, Brian Stuligross, Claire Bostick, & Daniel Nerger.

things being as they are

for guitar and electronics (2022)

It is too soon to know

for guitar and electronics (2022)

S O U S E

“S O U S E” for solo cello was written for and premiered by Felix Fan of the FLUX Quartet at the 2021 Virtual soundSCAPE Festival on July 19th.