Arguably the most important Israeli composer to emerge in the late twentieth century, Czernowin, born 7 December in Haifa, is much sought after as a composer and pedagogue in the United States and Europe. She earned a BA in 1982 at the Rubin Academy of Music, Tel-Aviv University, an MFA in 1987 at Bard College, and a PhD in 1993 at the University of California San Diego. Her principal teachers include Abel Ehrlich, Dieter Schnebel, Brian Ferneyhough and Roger Reynolds. Among her many honours and distinctions are the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis (1992), a year residency at the Akademie Schloss Solitude (1996), an Ernst von Siemens Stiftung Förderpreis (2003), the Fromm Foundation Award (2008), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2011). She has held professorships at the University of California San Diego, Vienna’s University of Music and Performing Arts and Harvard University. In addition to faculty positions at major contemporary music festivals like the Darmstadt Summer Courses, impuls academy, and the SWR Experimentalstudio’s matrix academy, Czernowin has initiated elite international courses for young composers on three continents: the Summer Academy at Schloss Solitude (Germany), Tzlil Meudcan (Israel), and Harvard’s Summer Composition Institute (USA).