MA/IN 2020

The LOXOSconcept organization, with the patronage of the “Comune di Matera“, the MiBAC and SIAE [Per Chi Crea], the SACEM, the Keyhole cultural association, the Quartetto Maurice, the L’Arsenale ensemble, the Cycling ’74, the INA-GRM, the Fra i Sassi Residence, promotes the FIFTH edition of the MA/IN 2020 [MAtera INtermedia festival].

LOXOSconcept wants to focus the attention on the electroacoustic culture and to offer an important stimulus for composers and multimedia artists, giving visibility to the electroacoustic genre and offering performative opportunities.

MA/IN 2020 AWARDS

CATEGORY [A] – ACOUSMATIC~
+ Award of Distinction +
Nikos Stavropoulos [GR] /// Claustro

Honorary Mention
Marin Escande [FR] /// зона
Joao Pedro Oliveira [PT] /// N’Vi’ah |Honorary Mention|

CATEGORY [B] – MIXDMEDIA~
+ Award of Distinction +
Nathan Nokes [US] /// Alone Together

Honorary Mention
Orestis Karamanlis [GR] /// BitVox

CATEGORY [C] – AUDIOVISUAL~
+ Award of Distinction +
not assigned

Honorary Mention
not assigned
(the jury unanimously decided not to award any prize)

CATEGORY [D] – LIVEPERFORMANCE/SOUNDART~
+ Award of Distinction +
Karl F Gerber [DE] /// For Violinautomaton

Honorary Mention
Pawel Janicki [PL] /// Ping Melody

SELECTED WORKS

[A] acousmatic music~
-selected for public concert
Nikos Stavropoulos [GR] /// Claustro
Marin Escande [FR] /// зона
Joao Pedro Oliveira [PT] /// N’Vi’ah
Leah Reid [US] /// Reverie
Francis Dhomont [CA] /// Perpetuum Mobile (Pluies fantômes)
David Q. Nguyen [US] /// Adumbrations

– included in the “MA/IN acousmatic mixtape 2020”
Kosmas Giannoutakis [GR] /// CECIA project
Kyle Vanderburg [US] /// Blueprints of Eternity
Francois Buffet [FR] /// Anabasis
Alex Buck [BR] /// Screaming Trees
Rocio Cano Valino [AR] /// Astérion

[B] mixed media music ~
-selected for public concert
Nathan Nokes [US] /// Alone Together
Orestis Karamanlis [GR] /// BitVox
Silvia Berrone [IT] + Guglielmo Diana [IT] /// Arctium Machina
Monte Taylor [US] /// Sigil II: Amistad
Sungji Hong [KR] /// Black Arrow
Luigi Ceccarelli [IT] /// Il contatore di nuvole

[C] audiovisual ~
-selected for AV installation
Nicola Fumo Frattegiani [IT] /// Bodies VS
Edwin Lucchesi [IT] /// Kathodic Karma
Francesco D’Abbraccio [IT] /// Adversarial Feelings

[D] live performance/installation ~
-selected for public concert/exhibition
Karl F Gerber [DE] /// For Violinautomaton
Pawel Janicki [PL] /// Ping Melody
Alberto Novello [IT] /// Celestial Harmonies
Weilu Ge [CN] /// Doppelgänger III
Roberto Maqueda [ES] + Lorenzo Colombo [IT] + Fernando Manassero [AR] /// Amoeba

MA/IN ~ 2020 festival

THE CALL IS CLOSED

CALL FOR WORKS

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

MA/IN 2020 calls for submissions in the following categories:

A - acousmatic ~

fixed media music

B - Mixed Media ~

for instruments and electronics (fixed or live)

C - AudioVisual ~

works with pre-prepared video and music

D - LivePerformance/SoundArt ~

works that include electronics/multimedia and other elements

PRIZES

The selection panel will assign :

AWARDS of DISTINCTION

n. 4 Max/MSP 8 licenses are available

HONORABLE MENTIONS

GRM tools Complete II splitted in : ``Classic`` ``Spectral Transform`` ``Spaces`` ``Evolution``

TRAVEL GRANT | FUND

a total amount of 3000 EUR for all categories ||| available for winners

1 GRM Tools Complete II Licence (granted by INA GRM)

4 Max/MSP 8 | full licenses (granted by Cycling ’74)

MA/IN will:

provide AudioVisual Recording for all live performances.
realize the MA/IN 2020 digital mixtape (for acousmatic art)
publish the MA/IN 2020 digital booklet
provide professional musicians and technical support.

INTERNATIONAL SELECTION PANEL

CHRISTOPHER TRAPANI

Jury2020

The American/Italian composer Christopher Trapani was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He earned a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard, a Master’s degree at the Royal College of Music, and a doctorate from Columbia University. He spent a year in Istanbul on a Fulbright grant, studying microtonality in Ottoman music, and nearly seven years in Paris, including several working at IRCAM. Christopher’s honors include the 2016-17 Rome Prize, a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship, and the 2007 Gaudeamus Prize. His debut CD, Waterlines was released on New Focus Recordings in 2018. He currently serves as Visiting Assistant Professor of Composition and Interim Director of the Electronic Music Studios at The University of Texas at Austin’s Butler School of Music. For more information, please visit: www.christophertrapani.com

Ryoichi Kurokawa

Jury2020

Ryoichi Kurokawa b. 1978 in Osaka (JP). Lives and works in Berlin. Japanese artist Ryoichi Kurokawa works with a wide range of mediums but is most famous for his audiovisual installations usually composed of multiple screens where abstract motifs suddenly appear from the dark and multiply or break away as if being microscopically dissected. These images and movements are paired with rippling, throbbing, swiveling sounds that feel as though they are coming from a deep place. The moving images that appear on the screen resemble outer space movements of particles, a process of complex chemical reactions, often seeming to be building up to an explosion. In some works, the motifs take on a more visually organic form, such as water streams or droplets that move across the screen. Kurokawa’s works visually translate the law of order in elements and the force of energy. As can be viewed from his works, Kurokawa states that nature is his principle source of inspiration. All of his works lie in this notion of hybridization. Between analog and digital, but also between time and space, the full and the fragmentary, the simple and the complex, the reactive and the contemplative, the auditory and visual. Audio and visual concordance are key in Kurokawa’s works. He considers both the audio and visual element as different vectors of a unique piece and insists that they have to flow together to enter a collision at the same time. Whether the recordings of waterfalls obliterate into white noise while simultaneously forming an almost spiritual and reverential stillness around the viewer, or whether field recordings in combination with computer generated structures like glitch minimalism coexist in harmony in an un-harmonious terrifying world of war and destruction: Ryoichi Kurokawa invents and presents an audiovisual language where complexity and simplicity alternate and combine in a fascinating synthesis. Ryoichi Kurokawa is a true poet of the transformative cinema, lyrically transfiguring the analog representations of perceived nature into digital streams of vertiginous imagery & emotion. The architecturally crafted precision of his sensitively synched fragmentary images placed side by side on our retina, tends to displace the persistence of blurred memory under the effect of boundless luminosity. Ryoichi Kurokawa was born in 1978 in Osaka and is currently based in Berlin. He has been producing and presenting his audio-visual artworks all over the world since 1999. Kurokawa describes his works as time-based sculptures. His works are a composition of symphonies, both imagined and produced as well as recorded. This with the combination of video material and computer-generated aesthetics changes how the spectator views the familiar. Kurokawa has done significant collaborative works throughout his career, most notably his collaboration with Vincent Minier —an astrophysicist and researcher at CEA, Irfu - Paris, Saclay —to create the immersive and tactile audiovisual installation unfold based on data produced by the satellites of the European Space Agency, NASA, and more specifically by the Herschel space telescope. Some of Kurokawa’s significant solo and group exhibitions and performances include fluxes, K11 Select (China, 2018), objectum, Takuro Someya Contemporay Art (Japan 2018), Coder le Monde, Centre Pompidou (France 2018), The Dream Of Forms, Palais de Tokyo (France 2017), unfold, FACT (England 2016), Ordered Disorder, Espacio Fundacion Telefonica (Peru 2015), Turbulences, Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton (France 2012), One of a Thousand Ways to Defeat Entropy - The 54th Venice Biennale (Italy 2011), transmediale, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Germany 2010), and Synthesis, Tate Modern (England 2007). www.ryoichikurokawa.com photo ©Nina Lüth-Ryoichi Kurokawa

Manuel Rocha Iturbide

Jury2020

Born in 1963 in Mexico City, Manuel Rocha Iturbide studies composition at the Escuela Nacional de Música at UNAM. He finishes an MFA in electronic music and composition at Mills College. In Paris, he finishes a PHD in computer music at the University of Paris VIII in 1999. He has worked at different studios like UPIC, GRM, IRCAM, LIEM, BANFF, IMEB, in order to produce works. He worked as a researcher at IRCAM developing GiST (1994-95) and later as a professor at the University of Paris VIII (1995-96). He has received prizes and honorific mentions from different international contests like Bourges, Russolo, Ars Electronica and the Schaeffer Prize. His music has been performed all around the world. He is also an artist and his work has been showed at important galleries and museums as ”Artist Space NY 1997”, “Sydney Biennale 1998”, “ARCO 1999”, "Art or Sound" show at Prada Foundation Italy (2014), etc. He has produced works with the aid of important grants and fellowships such as “Japan Foundation Fellowship”, “Sistema Nacional de Creadores”, Banff Center for the arts, etc. Important ensembles such as the “Arditti string quartet” have played he’s music. He currently lives in Mexico City where he produces his work and is a full time professor at the Art department at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana University (UAM). His web page is www.artesonoro.net

Alessandro Cipriani

Jury2020

Born in Tivoli (Rome), 1959 / Cipriani completed his studies in music composition and electroacoustic music at the Conservatorio S.Cecilia in Rome with G.Bizzi and G.Piazza. He studied for a time with Barry Truax in Vancouver (Canada). Since 1989 he has worked on intermedia pieces and audio-video multichannel and interactive installations, often in collaboration with visual artist Alba D’Urbano and director Giulio Latini, on pieces for instruments and electronics and electroacoustic pieces with traditional religious singers. He has composed soundtracks for creative film-documentaries and silent movies, integrating an advanced concept of fusion between dialogue, sound environment and music, including the soundtrack (in collaboration with Edison Studio composers) of “Inferno” (1911), “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” (1919), the expressionist masterpiece by Robert Wiene and “Battleship Potemkin” by Ejzenstejn. All three have been published in surround sound DVD by Cineteca di Bologna. Other soundtracks with Edison Studio are “The Last Days of Pompeii” (1913), , and “Blackmail” by Alfred Hitchcock, . He has also co-written (with Luigi Ceccarelli) the soundtrack for the 3D movie by Michel Comte “The Girl from Nagasaki”, the musical operas “Faust” and “Turandot” with National Beijing Opera Theatre, and two dance works by Robyn Orlin, performed at Venice Biennale Dance and Theatre de La Ville in Paris. His works have received honors and have been selected for performance at Synthèse Bourges, Government of Canada Award, International Computer Music Conference 94, 95, 99, 2002, 2003, 2008, CalArts/RedCat Festival – Walt Disney Hall, Los Angeles, Venice Biennale, Opera Theater Leipzig, (Germany) International Symposium on Electronic Arts, Musica Nova (Praha), Newcomp (U.S.A.), Inventionen (Berlin – Germany), Nuova Consonanza (Rome), Ravenna Festival, Engine 27 (New York), Festival d’Automne (Paris) etc. He has been tenured professor of electroacoustic music at the Conservatory of Catania (Ist. Mus. V. Bellini) from 1995 to 2003 and at the Conservatory of Frosinone (Rome) since November 2003. A compilation of electroacoustic pieces by his students from Sicily has been published on Electronic Music Foundation label (New York). He has taught and lectured about his music and his theory of ‘electroacoustic tradition’ at several Academies (Sibelius Academy – Helsinki, Accademia S.Cecilia- Rome etc.) and Universities in Europe, Canada and the U.S. (Simon Fraser University – Burnaby B.C., Californian Institute of the Arts (Los Angeles), University of Rome “Tor Vergata, University of California – Santa Barbara, Univ. of Catania, MedienKunst Dept. of Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst, Leipzig, DMU University, Leicester etc.). He has published analytical and theoretical papers in several journals (Organised Sound, Musica/Realtà, etc.) and has published the textbooks “Virtual Sound” and “Electronic Music and Sound Design” (written in collaboration with M.Giri and R.Bianchini) and adopted for computer music courses in various Universities and Conservatories in Europe, South and North America. His CD “Il Pensiero Magmatico” in collaboration with Stefano Taglietti is available on Edipan label. Other pieces can be found in the International Computer Music Conference ’95 and ICMC’99 CDs. A monographic CD, “Al Nur”, including all his works with oral tradition musicians and his trilogy on religious chant, was released on CNI Compagnia Nuove Indye. Computer Music Journal (M.I.T. Press) selected one of his multi-channel pieces (in surround 5.1) to be included in the annual DVD in 2003, released on CMJ 27 (4). A piece written for Iranian percussionist Mahammad Ghavi Helm has been published on CNI-RAI Trade label. A 5.1 piece on DVD has been released on Everglade Records (USA) and an acousmatic piece on XXI Musicale – Elettronica Italiana Vol.2.

Hèctor Parra

Jury2020

Hèctor Parra (Barcelona on 1976) has studied composition with David Padrós and Carles Guinovart at the Barcelona Conservatorium, with Jonathan Harvey, Brian Ferneyhough and Philippe Manoury at Ircam in Paris as well as with Michael Jarrell in the Haute École de Musique of Geneva. He has the Master in Arts of the Paris-VIII University with honours. He has been Professor of Electroacoustic Composition at the Conservatory of Music of Zaragoza, in Spain, and from 2013 to 2017 he has taught composition at Ircam-Centre Pompidou. Premieres of his works have been performed by the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Klangforum Wien, Musikfabrik, Ensembe Recherche, the Arditti Quartet, the Gürzenich Orchester Köln, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Radio Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, Freiburger Barockorchester, Concerto Köln, Barcelona National Orchestra, Spain National Orchestra, etc. He received commissions from the French state, the Flemish Opera House, the Nürnberg Opera House, the Ircam-Centre Pompidou, the Berlin Academy of Arts, the Strasbourg Musica Festival, Musée du Louvre, WDR, SWR, Kölner Philharmonie and Mécénat Musical Société Générale, among others. His works are premiered at the international festivals of Lucerne, Warsaw Autumn, Wien Modern, Paris Philharmonie, Donaueschingen, Ircam Manifeste, Witten, Stuttgart Opera House, Barcelona Opera Liceu, Guggenheim NY, San Francisco Arts Festival, Vienna Konzerthaus, etc. He has composed six operas and music theatre works in close collaboration with writers such as Marie NDiaye and Händl Klaus, that has been staged by Caixto Bieito, Rebecca Ringst, Vera Nemirova, Georges Lavaudant, Matthew Ritchie, Benjamin Schad and Robert Pienz at the Antwerp Opera House 2019, Berlin Staatsoper 2016, Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele 2015, Münchener Biennale 2014, Theater Freiburg 2014, Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord 2014, Festival Musica Strasbourg 2014, Sophiensaele Berlin and Basel Gare du Nord 2013, Gran Teatre del Liceu 2010, Luxemburg Philharmonie 2010, Kaaitheater Bruxelles 2010, Centre Pompidou 2009, Opera de Hoy 2007, Madrid. Since the world premiere of his latest opera Les Bienveillantes, based on Jonathan Littell's eponymous novel, on a libretto by Händl Klaus and staged by Calixto Bieito, the international press has never stopped greeting the event: "The most important opera of the 21st century" La Vanguardia, "A grandiose and challenging score" BRF Nachrichten, "A highly expressive music, masterfully orchestrated" Neue Zürcher Zeitung, "A colossal score, of great dramatic force "El Mundo," Immensely powerful, extremely cleverly built "Deutschlandfunk," A limit experience "Crescendo Magazine. His opera ‘Das geopferte Leben, 2014’ was nominated by the prestigious German magazine Opernwelt ‘one of the premieres of the year’, and his but last opera, Wilde, has been qualified as ‘a masterpiece’ by the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and the specialized magazine Das Opernglas. Among his latest projects, 'Inscape' (2018), an immersive symphonic work inspired by the cosmological theories of French physicist Jean -Pierre Luminet, co-commissioned by the Auditori de Barcelona, IRCAM, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Orchestre National de Lille and the Gürzenich Orchester Köln. Winner of the Ernst von Siemens Composers Prize 2011, in 2017 he was awarded the National Prize of Culture of Catalonia. In 2009 he won the Premi Tendències of the Spanish journal El Mundo. In 2007 he won the Donald Aird Memorial Prize of San Francisco and in 2008 the Impuls/Klangforum Wien de Graz. In 2005 he was unanimously awarded the Tremplin Prize given by the Ensemble Intercontemporain. In 2002 he won the Prize of the National Institute for Performing Arts and Music of Spain. A monographic CD with his trios and chamber music performed by the ensemble Recherche has been published by the label KAIROS (2008). In 2010 KAIROS publishes his chamber opera Hypermusic Prologue, with a libretto of the renowned Harvard physicist Lisa Randall, played by the Ensemble Intercontemporain and Ircam, and in 2012 Col-legno and the Ernst von Siemens Foundation publishes his fourth monographic CD: Caressant l’Horizon. His works are published by Durand/Universal Music Publishing Classical, Paris, and by Editorial Tritó (Barcelona). Official website: http://hectorparra.net

Patricia Alessandrini

Jury2020

Patricia Alessandrini is a composer/sound artist creating compositions, installations, and performance situations which are for the most part interactive and theatrical. Through these intermedial formats, she actively engages with the concert music repertoire, and issues of representation, interpretation, perception, and memory. Her works are often collaborative, and engage with social and political issues. She performs research on embodied interaction and immersive audiovisual experience, including instrument design for inclusive performance. Her works have been presented in the Americas, Asia, Australia, and over 15 European countries, in festivals such as Archipel, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Electric Spring, HCMF, Heidelberger Frühling, Gaudeamus, Mostly Mozart, Musica Strasbourg, Rainy Days, Salzburg Biennale, and Sonorities. She is also a performer and improvisor of live electronics. She was composer-in-residence at the 2010 soundSCAPE festival, and featured in ICELab with the International Contemporary Ensemble in 2012. She was awarded first prize in 2009 in the Sond’Arte Composition Competition for Chamber Music with Electronics, and a Förderpreis in Composition by the Darmstädter Ferienkurse in 2012. In 2015-6, she was featured as a composer, curator and educator in four concert and outreach events of the Ensemble InterContemporain, as part of the Sound Kitchen series at the Gaîté lyrique, a centre for digital arts in Paris. She studied composition and electronics at the Conservatorio di Bologna, Conservatoire National de Strasbourg and IRCAM, and holds two PhDs, from Princeton University and the Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC) respectively. She has taught alto perfezionamento of Computer-Assisted Composition at the Scuola superiore of the Accademia Musicale Pescarese, Composition with Technology at Bangor University, as a Lecturer in Sonic Arts at Goldsmiths, University of London, and was appointed Assistant Professor of Composition at Stanford University in 2018, where she also performs research at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). Her works are published by Babelscores, and may also be consulted at patriciaalessandrini.com .

Carmine Emanuele Cella

Jury2020

Carmine Emanuele Cella is a internationally renown composer with advanced studies in applied mathematics. He studied at Conservatory of Music G. Rossini in Italy getting master degrees in piano, computer music and composition and he got a PhD in musical composition at the Accademia di S. Cecilia in Rome. He also studied philosophy and mathematics and got a PhD in mathematical logic at the University of Bologna entitled On Symbolic Representations of Music (2011). From 2007 to 2008, Carmine-Emanuele Cella had a research position at Ircam in Paris working on audio indexing. In 2011-2012, he designs Ircam the live electronics of Stefano Gervasoni’s opera Limbus-Limbo. He was the same year composer in residency at Ircam, where his piece Gia' s'ottenebra il giorno for orchestra was created during the academy-festival ManiFeste 2012. Ircam commissioned him Reflets de l'ombre for the Orchestre Philarmonique de Radio France, that was premiered in June 2013 in Salle Pleyel. He has been nominated member of Academie de France à Madrid for 2013-2014 at Casa de Velazquez. In 2015-2016, he has conducted research in applied mathematics at École Normale Supérieure de Paris with Stéphane Mallat. In 2016, he has been in residency at the American Academy in Rome, where he worked on his opera Pane, sale sabbia, that was premiered in June 2017 at the National Opera of Kiev. In the same year, his piece Inside-out for smart percussions has been played in Paris by Percussions de Strasbourg and has been acclaimed by public and critics. From 2017 to 2018 worked on computer assisted orchestration at Ircam, a long standing topic proposed by Boulez at the early stage of Ircam. In this context, he managed to propose innovative solutions that are gathering consensus in the community. He is also working on his forthcoming projects: a piece for smart percussions to be played in 2019 by Percussions de Strasbourg and a piece for live electronics only that will be played simultaneously in three cities (Paris, Athens and Karlsruhe) in November 2019. Since January 2019, Carmine is assistant professor in music and technology at CNMAT, University of California, Berkeley. As a composer, he won many prizes, including: 1st prize at the G. Rossini composition competition (1998), 1st prize at the Egidio Carella competition (2010), 2nd prize at the ICOMS composition competition (2010). In 2006 he has been semifinalist at the Queen Elisabeth composition competition and in 2007 at the George Enescu composition competition. In 2009 Carmine Emanuele Cella has been selected by the SWR orchestra of Stuttgart, while in 2011 he has been finalist at the international Isang Yun music prize in South Korea for his piece The Manhattan distance, for orchestra. In 2007 he received the E. Contestabile grant from Accademia Chigiana and the G. Guarino grant from Accademia di S. Cecilia in Roma, while in 2008 he won the prestigious Petrassi prize for composition, from the President of the Italian Republic Giorgio Napolitano. In 2015, he won the prize Una Vita Nella Musica Giovani at Teatro La Fenice in Venice. In 2018 he has been nominated for the prestigious prize Prince Pierre de Monaco, while in 2019 he has been finalist in the Basel composition competition.

Elzbieta Sikora

Jury2020

French-Polish composer / Born 1943 in Lwow, Poland, Elzbieta Sikora studied electronic music with Pierre Schaeffer and Francois Bayle in Paris and music composition with Tadeusz Baird and Zbigniew Rudzinski in Warszaw, Poland and with Betsy Jolas in Paris. In 1973 she founded, with W.Michniewski and K.Knittel the Group of Composers KEW. Scholarships from the French Government at IRCAM, Paris, the City of Mannheim, and the Kosciuszko Foundation at CCRMA (Computer Center for Research in Music and Acoustics), Stanford, have enriched the composer’s international outlook. From 2011 to 2017 she was the artistic director of the Musica Electronica Nova in Wroclaw, Poland. Elzbieta Sikora has received among others: II Prize for her opera Ariadna, at the Composers Competition in Dresden, Germany, Prix Magistère for Aquamarina in Bourges, France. She has been awarded by SACEM, received the SACD Prize Nouveau Talent Musique for her opera L’Arrache-coeur, in Paris, France and Künstlerinnenpreise in Heidelberg, Germany. She was awarded by l’Académie du Disque Lyrique in Paris for the DVD of her opera Madame Curie and received the French Distinction, Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, the Polish Government Cros of Merit distinction and the Gloria Artis medal. Since 1981 Elzbieta Sikora lives and works in Paris, France. Her catalog includes more than seventy major works among which four operas, three ballets, several symphonic works, concertos, chamber music works, electroacoustic and mixed music.

Seung-Won Oh

Jury2020

Seung-Won Oh, a native of Korea, is an acclaimed composer who was described as "a name to remember" in the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant. Her music has been performed throughout Europe, North America and Asia, and transcends traditional boundaries. As critic Mirjam Zegers writes, "Oh connects East and West, vibrant motion and stillness, pure sound and ritual theatre, stratified structures and transparency." The recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation at the Bellagio Center, the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship through the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Barlow Endowment for music composition, Oh is celebrated both in her home country and abroad: at the 3rd Seoul International Competition for Composers she received both first prize and the audience prize; in 2007 the third prize of the Lutoslawski Award in Poland; in 2010 an international jury awarded her the Toonzetters Prize, given yearly for the best contemporary music composed in the Netherlands. Oh's background is as varied as her accolades. She began her studies at Korea's Ewha Women's University. She went on to earn her PhD in the United States, at Brandeis University, before her studies led her to the Netherlands and the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. Until then, her music had been rooted in the contemporary Western tradition. It was during her time in the Netherlands that she began to explore the rich musical traditions of her own heritage. In recent years a rapidly growing interest in theater, space, movement and interaction with the audience has been generating projects that require close collaboration with the performers. She continues to experiment with form, texture, timbre and space. In her 2018 work, Mixtures II, written for a nontraditional stage such as a museum or a gallery, she experiments with the spatial commodity of the sound experience itself, using the homogeneous timbre of four violins surrounding the audience. The use of amplification is minimal – often simply magnifying delicate sounds. Unlike the more conventional idea of dual speakers, however, each violin is heard through only one individual speaker that stands next to the paired violin. In this way the spatial sensation and constant drive towards a heterophonic texture are compositionally curated in the score. Often, her works juxtapose soloists or groups of instruments against an ensemble, creating a space for dramatic development. The conflict between the individual's will and the collective's demands is a frequent theme. In DaDeRimGil, performed at the 2010 at the Bang on a Can Marathon in New York, she employed the percussive rhythms used by Korean housewives in their daily ironing ritual in order to individuate a tedious yet necessary task. DaDeRimGil, originally commissioned and premiered by Slagwerk Den Haag (Percussion the Hague) in 2003, has become Oh's most widely-performed piece; its exploration of phasing effects and timbral transformation continue to engage and excite the players as well as audiences. Percussion plays a vital role in Oh's music. In her 2008 music theatre work, Words and Beyond: Hwang Jin-Yi, percussionists, positioned in four corners, create the stage for a female singer and dancer. For the female singer's part in this piece, Oh employs JungGa, an ancient Korean vocal technique. Composer Louis Andriessen said of Words and Beyond: 'Seung-Ah Oh's timing is sublime. The trick is not to strike too soon.' Oh applied and evolved these techniques in the Toonzetter-winning JungGa, Concerto for Oboe and Musette. Rather than a vocalist performing the JungGa technique, Oh wrote it into the parts for oboe. Again, percussion figures prominently in the piece and, Oh says, "is indelibly linked to the oboe part." Oh's music has been performed worldwide, by ensembles such as Asko|Schönberg Ensemble, Contemporary Music Ensemble Korea, ensemble MoVE, Ensemble TIMF (Tongyeong International Music Festival), Nederlands Vocaal Laboratorium(Sibersee), Doelen Ensemble, Ensemble Chronophonie, Atlas ensemble, Percussion Group The Hague, Nieuw Ensemble, Orkest de Volharding, Orkest de Ereprijs, Flexible Music, ensemble KLANG, Empyrean Ensemble and New York New Music Ensemble among others. Festivals and venues that have featured her work include: Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Schauspielhaus Wien (AT), Seoul Arts Center (KR), Bang On A Can Festival (US), Music of Our Age Contemporary Music Festival (HU), Gaudeamus International Music Week (NL), Alicante Contemporary Music Festival (ES), Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival (NO), Huddersfield Music Festival(UK), Transit Festival (BE), November Music(NL), Aspen Music Festival(US), Tanglewood Music Festival (US), and Tong Yeong International Music festival (KR). Since 2005, Oh has taught at Brandeis University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Florida, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and DePaul University.

Laura Bianchini

Jury2020

Interested in scientific research and in the use of technologies, Laura Bianchini collaborated in the realization of electronic systems for musical composition (both analogical and digital), including the construction of one of the earliest Italian computers for sound synthesis in real time Fly10, designed in 1983 by composer Michelangelo Lupone. Her work includes pieces for electronics, radio, instruments, dance and theatre, performed at international festivals. For several years she has been carrying out research work on the relationship between text and music and on the musical fable collaborating with writers and directors (Susanna Tamaro, Giorgio Pressburger, Gustavo Frigerio, Ida Bassignano, Luca Ronconi). From 2003 her research is specially focused on integrated art works such as “Art sound installations” which combine the listening environment to plastic forms, light and sound technologies, designed at CRM - Centro Ricerche Musicali. She realized different installations (“Varianti in rame”, a permanent site specific interactive installation (2011); “Armonico” commissioned by De Mura house of Design, (both realized with the collaboration of visual artist Licia Galizia), “In a landscape” based on Sound guides, inspired and dedicated to John Cage (2012); “Ali Sensibili” for the Caetani Castle of Trevi nel Lazio (2013). She co-designed “Gioco delle risonanze” with Michelangelo Lupone (who also realized the music and sound spatialization), a huge site specific permanent and interactive installation in the Palestra Grande - Archeological site of Pompeii (2006-2015). She is co-founder of CRM-Centro Ricerche Musicali, Roma (1988), a centre for musical and scientific research, of which she is co-director and where she continues her artistic activity.

ENSEMBLES

THAUMA TRIO [percussion]

Performer2020

L’arsenale [ensemble]

Performer2020

Quartetto Maurice [string quartet]

Performer2020

MATERA

Matera is said to be the world’s third-oldest town, dating back to the Palaeolithic Age and inhabited continuously for around 7000 years. The simple natural grottoes that dotted the gorge were adapted to become homes, and an ingenious system of canals regulated the flow of water and sewage. The town lies in a small canyon carved out by the Gravina River. Known as la città sotterranea (“the underground city”), its historical centre “Sassi” contains ancient cave dwellings. This is the most outstanding, intact example of a troglodyte settlement in the Mediterranean region, perfectly adapted to its terrain and ecosystem. Matera is in the southern region of Basilicata. The World Heritage property (UNESCO) includes the Sassi of Matera and the Park of the Rupestrian Churches, which together encompass the characteristic cultural features, sites and monuments that underpin the Outstanding Universal Value of the property. Matera has been European Capital of Culture 2019.

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