Meet the Composers - 2010
Score Title
Smash and Grab for Full Ensemble
Biography
Benjamin Oliver lives in London and is working as the AHRC Postdoctoral Research Assistant in Composition for Cochlear Implant Users and as a lecturer in composition at the University of Southampton; and as a freelance composer, electronic musician, pianist and educator.
Ben was born in 1981 and grew up in Chatham, Kent, in the UK. He left home for Yorkshire and in 2005 graduated from the University of Leeds with distinction in his MMus in Composition. He recently completed his DPhil in Composition at the University of Sussex (graduation in January 2011) under the supervision of Sam Hayden where he was also an associate tutor in composition. He received financial support from the AHRC and a 2006 PRS Foundation Scholarship for his doctoral work.
Ben’s music has been performed internationally and in the UK by ensembles including: Orkest de Ereprijs (International Young Composers Meeting 2010, The Netherlands), Ostrava Banda (Ostrava Days Festival 2009, Czech Republic), Leeds University Union Symphony Orchestra, Black Dyke and Rothwell Temperance Brass Bands, LIMA Orchestra, Dan Stern’s Woodwork (London Jazz Festival 2008), The Mobius Ensemble with Hackney CYM Children’s Choir (Spitalfields Festival 2010), Yorkshire Philharmonic Choir, Labyrinth, Retorica Duo (Odessa Festival 2008, Ukraine), Musarc (London Festival of Architecture 2010), Kosmos, EMFEB Chamber Orchestra, NYX trio and Leeds Sinfonia. His fifty minute work Fasten Your Seatbelts, which aligned his own quartet with electronics, was premiered to critical acclaim at the 2007 Soundwaves Festival in Brighton. Groups including Orkest de Ereprijs, Gemini Ensemble and the Royal Academy of Music Manson Ensemble have performed his music in workshops.
http://benolivermusic.com/
Score Title
il Colore dell'Ombra
for Violin, Violoncello and Piano
Biography
Clara Iannotta was born in Rome in 1983, She began his musical studies at the Conservatorio Santa Cecilia in Rome, where she obtained her diploma in Flute. After finishing her studies at the Conservatorio « Giuseppe Verdi » in Milan, with Professor A. Solbiati, she was accepted to the Master’s program in Composition in the class of Frédéric Durieux at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP). In 2009 Clara was chosen to attend the Cursus 1 (2010-2011) at 'IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique / Musique) in Paris. Prize holder of numerous international competitions, Clara has received commissions from the Ministère de la Culture Française, Résonance Contemporaine and the Festival Pontino.
She has also received commissions from the French Ministry of Culture, the International Composer Pyramid, the Ensemble Nomos, Resonance Contemporaine and Pontino Festival. Clara’s studies are funded by the project Movin'Up 2010 (Ministry of Heritage and Culture and the Gai - Association for the Circuit of the Young Italian Artists) and Nadia et Lili Boulanger Foundation 2011- 2012. Among the interpreters of his music include ensembles such as Aleph, Fun, Farben, multilateral, Paris, Nomos, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, Orchestre National de Lorraine, as well as musicians such as Irvine Arditti, Alain Billard, Jean Deroyer, Annamaria Morini, Francesco Dillon, Roberto Prosseda , Dario Savron, Lorna Windsor.
Score Title
Die Nacht for Full ensemble, Tape and Film
Biography
Daniel Saleeb read music as a choral scholar at Magdalen, Oxford, and recently completed his Master's in Advanced Composition at the Royal College of Music with Kenneth Hesketh. His musical interests are wide-ranging, though music theatre is a particular passion. Daniel's most recent performance was his short music theatre work She walketh veiled and sleeping... at Riverside Studios,
London, as part of Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival. He continues to work on various projects, and is composer-in-residence with Offstage Theatre. “Neatly diffused electroacoustic effects almost graphically present the voices in her head and the hands of a jittery video clock jump randomly to suggest a temporal limbo. Heldt’s whispering and nervous repetition of phrase fragments make for involving drama and her undoing proper comes over a suitably gothic crashing piano cadenza. Saleeb uses his ensemble of six players to skilful effect.”
Score Title
Resonance for Flute, Clarinet, Horn and Piano
Biography
Elo Masing (b. 1984) is a young Estonian composer whose interest in composition grew out of a passion for improvisation. Her music has been performed in several countries throughout Europe by ensembles such as the Tallinn-based Una Corda, the CoMA London Ensemble, the London Sinfonietta, the European Union Chamber Orchestra and many others. Elo is currently finishing her Master's studies in composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where her teacher is David Sawer. Elo has worked with figurative artists and created electro-acoustic music for Ene and Aino Jakobi’s exhibition Vihmavarjutus (Eclipse of Rain) at the Tallinn Gallery of Architecture and Design in 2008. She has also worked with the choreographer Karmen Ong on her performance Off the Stage and created music for the animated film Proboscidian produced in collaboration with a group of young animators. As a free improviser, she has performed at the Walestonia Festival in Cardiff with the pioneers of Estonian free improvisation Anto Pett and Anne-Liis Poll. Elo is the recipient of the Cultural Scholarship of the Republic of Estonia (2008), the Archimedes Foundation Scholarship (2008), the Ismena Holland Award (2008), and the Erkki-Sven Tüür Award (2009).
Score Title
Light and Shade
for Clarinet solo, Violin, Viola and Violoncello
Biography
Florent Motsch was born in 1980 in Paris. He studied at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris (Paris Conservatoire), where he won several first prizes. As a prize-winner of the Paris Conservatoire, he is a Fellow of the Meyer Foundation and the Foundation Salabert. He read for a degree in musicology at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne, He is also practice a French horn player and a pianist. He also teaches composition in Paris. In 2007 he was awarded by the Academie des Beaux-Arts (Institut de France). In 2008 he won the International Rostrum of Composers (organized by UNESCO) and winner of the contest TACTUS (Mons, Belgium). He received advice from composers such as M. Jarrell, B. Mantovani, J. Anderson. In 2009, he participated in the sessions of the composition of Royaumont, edited by B. Ferneyhough. He obtained this year commissioned by the state for a work written for ensemble of 16 saxophones. In
2010, he won the competition for young composers Appassionato (Caen) and he was commissioned to write a piece for the price of conducting the Paris Conservatoire which was performed at the Cité de la Musique, Paris. His works have been performed by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre National de Lille, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, the
Orchestre de Caen, the Orchestre du Conservatoire de Paris (Paris Conservatoire) and different ensembles (the Instant Donné, Cairn, Linea, Proxima Centauri, Neue Vocalsolisten, Orchestr'Utopica) in France, London (City of London Festival), Luxembourg, Belgium, Spain and Portugal, under the direction of conductors such as Peter Eötvös, Dominique My, Jean and François-Xavier Deroyer Roth. Florent is currently a member of the artistic section of the Casa de Velazquez (Madrid) and works in various orders, to Radio France (choral), for the Orchestre National de Lille and the Orchestre de Caen.
Score Title
Diurne: alter ego for Full Ensemble
Biography
Hugo Ribeiro was born in Lisbon in 1983. In 2005 he completed a Bmus Hons degree in composition at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa and subsequently obtained a Mmus degree at the Royal Academy of Music in London in 2007. During this time he participated in a variety of composition courses with composers such as Emmanuel Nunes, Salvatore Sciarrino, Philippe Hurel and John Chowning, amongst others.
In 2004 he participated in the summer composition courses in Darmstadt where he worked with Bryan Ferneyhough, Georg Friedrich Haas, Toshio Hosokawa and Tadeusz Wielecki.
Among the public performances of his music one can highlight the performance of Letter for Kundera for 14 players in the Festival Listen to the World! 2009 (Sweden) performed by the Ensemble Gageego!, conducted by Pierre-André Valade; and the premiere of the opera Os mortos viajam de metro at the S. Luiz Theatre in Lisbon in April 2010.
He has been distinguished with awards such as 1st Prize in the 2nd International Composition Competition Póvoa de Varzim “Orchestra Category” (2007) and won the national competition Opera in Creation 2008 at the S. Luiz Theatre in Lisbon (Portugal).
He is currently completing a PhD at Canterbury Christ Church University (England).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4TX0amOmaw
Score Title
Signals and Bipolar Coordinates
for Ensemble and Tape
Biography
Mateu Malondra Flaquer was born in 1977 in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. In 1999 he moved to Barcelona where he received guitar lessons as student of Sadahiro Otani. In Barcelona, Christian de Jong and David Padros introduced him to composition studies. In 2004 he started his Bachelor in Composition at Maastricht Conservatory with Robert HP Platz. In 2010 graduated from Maastricht Conservatory as a Master in Music Composition with distinction. He also holds a Bachelor’s degree in guitar performing from Den Haag Royal Conservatoire where he studied as soloist and chamber music with E.Voorhorst. As a part of the composition curriculum, Malondra Flaquer, did an electronic music course at Centre Henri Pousseur (Liège) with Patrick Delges and in 2010 he completed a residency program with Jean-Marc Sullon. In addition to his academic studies he has attended master classes with Daniel D’Adamo, Brian Ferneyhough, Beat Furrer, Wolfgang Rihm, and Edwin Roxburg.
He has been the recipient of several grants and scholarships like “MusicaSacra Maastricht”, Cultural Council of East Iceland, Encontre de compositors-Illes Balears-2007, Intro-insitu, Music Village 2011, Intitud Ramon Llull, among others. Arditti String Quartet as part of the Kingston University International Call for New Works 2010 recorded Malondra’s first string quartet. He was finalist at the ICP 2010. He has been on of the selected composer for Donaueschingen Musiktage-Next Generation 2011.
His pieces have been performed in such festivals as Cairo Contemporary Music Days, Encontre Internacional de compositors-Illes Balears, Festival Antoni Lliteres, Festival Musica Sacra Maastricht, Nact der neuen Musik-Düsseldorf. His pieces have been performed in such halls as Conzertzaal Tilburg, Theater ann het Vrijthof, Muziekcentrum First Philips, Concertgebouw Brugge, Teatre Principal, Auditorium Bizet Dunkerque, St.Gregory’s center of Music-Canterbury.
Recent projects include a Violin Concerto for GTM-Orchestra, a commissioned piece for ensemble Bcn216, a commissioned piece for ensemble dissonArt and a duet for Sonodualis. Malondra’s works have been broadcasted by Netherlands national Radio-4.
Nowadays Malondra is a full time PhD student in composition at Kingston University-London, under the guidance of Paul Archbold.
Such musicians, ensembles and orchestras as Arditti String Quartet, Ensembel ACA, Bcn216, Ensemble dissonArt, Ensemble Exposé, Ensemble88, GTM-Youth Orchestra, Mdi Ensemble, Nexeduet, Studium Chorale, Ossian Ensemble, Els Crommen, Joanna Czaj, Angelique van Durling, Svanur Vilbergsson and such conductors as Gerry Cornelius, Beat Furrer, Andrés Gomis, Rainer Hilger, Taco Kooistra, Hans Leenders, Robert HP Platz, Roger Redgate, José María Sánchez Verdú and Michel Tabachnik have performed his pieces.
Malondra’s pieces have been performed around Europe, Egypt, Iceland and UK.
Coming activities: Ulrich Pöhl will be conducting Malondra’s piece “Aankomst” ,based on the book “Roads to Santiago” by the Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom, at the Donaueschinger Musiktage-Next Generation 2011. Yasuaki Itakura will conduct the Spanish premier of “Capsule” at the Auditori in Barcelona and Taco Kooistra will conduct “Aankomst” at the “Nou Sons Festival 2012” in Barcelona.
Writings about Malondra include an essay by Anemone van Zijl published at STT-Den Haag. Malondra’s research on “Extended Vocal Techniques” included interviews with NVocaalLab, Sharon Paul, Nicholas Isherwood and Wolfgang Saus.
www.mateumalondra.com
Score Title
norman (age7) dreams of being a violin
for Full Ensemble
Biography
Mike Solomon has earned degrees in music composition from Queen's University Belfast and Stanford University. His music explores the manners in which technology can dialogically engage a composer's creativity by means of analytic and stochastic algorithms.
Mike's works have been performed at events such as the International Computer Music Conference, the Society of Composers Inc Annual Conference (both general and student), and the CHASM Festival at Florida State University. He has received commissions from Stanford University and the Township of East Brunswick. He was a finalist in the ASCAP Young Composers Competition and the MATA Festival. He has presented papers at the Society of Music Analysis's TAGS Day, Music Theory Midwest, and ICMC. He recently completed a year-long research residency at the University of Paris VI, where he examined symbolic representations of internalized acoustic representations
Score Title
Femme-tete-temps
for String Quartet
Biography
Score Title
Chimera
for Full Ensemble
Biography
Score Title
Beta and Tau
for Full Ensemble
Biography
Ryan Latimer was born in Cheshire in 1990. In 2007 he was offered a scholarship to study composition at the Birmingham Conservatoire and is currently studying with Joe Cutler.
He attended the Darmstadt International Course for New Music in 2010; receiving tuition from Brian Ferneyhough and Rebecca Saunders.
His recent works have included The Canon of Medicine, written for the Kenneth Page Foundation Composition Project; Uncomfortable Music, written for the distinguished piano duo, Darragh Morgan and Mary Dullea; and finally, In a Network of Lines That Intersect and Enlace, which was premiered at the Adrian Boult Hall as part of the New Generation Arts Festival 2009.
Ryan is a participant in the International Composer Pyramid project and his new piece, Beta and Tau, written for the ICP Ensemble, is to be performed in the UK and France later this year.
www.ryanlatimer.com
Score Title
Opened Up
for Full Ensemble