PROFESSORS – VII – ACADEMY

Jérôme Combier, composer (France)

Jérôme Combier studied composition, style, analysis, and orchestration with Hacène Larbi, and then later, in 1997, at the Paris Conservatory with Emmanuel Nunes and Michaël Lévinas. In addition, his university studies lead to a master’s degree on Anton Webern with mentor Antoine Bonnet (“Le principe de variation chez Anton Webern”). In 1995 he was a finalist in the Griegselskalpet competition in Oslo. In 1997, he founded the Cairn Ensemble, and is now the artistic director. Jérôme Combier received the “Vocation” Prize (awarded by the Bleustein-Blanchet Foundation) and the Pierre Cardin prize. In September 1998, he participated in the composition session at the Fondation Royaumont, and as part of a cultural exchange, was in residence in Japan for two months. In 2001-2002, he was chosen to participate in the composition and musical computing cursus at IRCAM. For two years, between 2002 and 2004, he developed composition and conducting programs in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan with support from the Paris Conservatory for the conservatories in Tashkent and Almaty, and then the following year was in residence at the Villa Medicis. Jérôme Combier was quest composer at the Why Note festival in Dijon, Tage für Neue Musik in Zurich, the festival of Aix-en-Provence, the Adelburgh Festival, and the Witten Festival. His compositions for Ensemble Recherche and Ensemble Intercontemporain were part of the Autumn Festival in Paris. In collaboration with Pierre Nouvel, he created the installation Noir Gris for the Beckett exposition organised by the Centre Georges Pompidou.

Yannis Kyriakides, composer (the Netherlands)

Yannis Kyriakides was born in Limassol, Cyprus in 1969 and in 1975 emigrated with his  family to Britain. After travelling for a year with his violin in the near east, learning traditional music, he returned to England to study musicology at York University, later being drawn by the music of Louis Andriessen to move to The Netherlands, with whom he studied under at the Hague Conservatory. As a composer and sound artist he strives to create new forms and hybrids of media, synthesizing disparate sound sources and exploring spatial and temporal experience. He has focused in the majority of his work on ways of combining traditional performance practices with digital media. His has written over ninety compositions: Memoryscape (35′) for video and ensemble (musikfabrik, WDR) ; Satellites (50′) ensemble and electronics (Seattle Chamber Players); Disco Debris (interactieve installatie, Amiens Maison de la Culture). Ocean of Rain (80′) opened the Aldeburgh Music Festival in 2008. Two sound installations will be shown at the Dutch pavillion of the Venice Bienalle 2011. He has been featured composer at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2007 and will be in November Music Festival 2011. He has released about 10 CD’s of his music of which the most recent is ‘Antichamber’, a double CD collection of electroacoustic chamber music, which won a French Qwartz electronic music award.  In September 2000 he won the Gaudeamus composition prize. The CD ‘Wordless’ received an honorary mention in the Prix Ars Electronica 2006. He is artistic director of Ensemble MAE, and teaches composition at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague.

Elzbieta Sikora, composer (France)

Born in 1943 in Lwow, Poland, Elzbieta Sikora  studied music composition with Tadeusz Baird and Zbigniew Rudzinski in Warsaw, Poland, with Betsy Jolas in Paris and electro-acoustic music composition with Pierre Schaeffer and Francois Bayle 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.

Elzbieta Sikora has received among others: II Prize for her opera “Ariadna”, at the Composers Competition in Dresden, Germany,  Prix Magisterium for “Aquamarina” in Bourges, France. She has been awarded  by SACEM, received the SACD Prize Nouveau Talent Musique, in Paris, France for her opera “L’Arrache-coeur” and Künstlerinnenpreis in  Heidelberg, Germany. She received the Cross of Merit from the  Polish Government in 1997.  In 2003 she was awarded by l’Académie du Disque Lyrique and in 2004 she was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.  From 1985 to 2005 Elzbieta Sikora  thought at the Music Conservatory and at the Fine Art School in Angoulême. In 2004 and 2007 she was visiting professor at the University of Chicago. Elzbieta Sikora is currently artistic director of Musica Electronica Nova Festival, Wroclaw, Poland. For her last opera “Madame Curie” she received several prizes in Poland and in France. “Madame Curie” was performed in Tianjin Grand Theater in September 2014. Elzbieta Sikora lives and works in Paris, France. Her works, published by:  PWM, Chant du Monde, are performed around the world.  Many are on CD’s.

GUESTS – VII – ACADEMY

Davo van Peursen, director of Publishing House “Donemus” (the Netherlands)

Donemus Davo van Peursen

Davo van Peursen is the managing director of Donemus Publishing that treasures 13,000 compositions written over last 100 years by more than 600 composers. The catalogue covers all kinds of music, from minimal to experimental electronic music, from string quartets to operas. All scores and parts are digitized. Davo renewed Donemus in 2012 to an innovative publishing house with a new business approach. It is the first music publisher that offers digital parts for rent and distributes both hard copies or PDF as permanent loan.

Donemus reaches customers in 50 countries from amateurs to the top soloists, orchestras and opera houses. Donemus built a strong community with a large network and with 1000 daily views on its media. It also cooperates with new digital innovations like music XML and digital music stands. Davo studied organ and contemporary improvisation at the Royal Conservatory and lives in The Hague The Netherlands. He is the chairman of the Dutch Music Publishers Association (VMN) and board member of Buma/Stemra, the Dutch author rights society He is regularly asked for lectures on the future of music publishing in several countries.

Leila Monasypova, musicologist, art-director of Sofia Gubaidulina Center (Kazan, Tatarstan)

Leila Monasypova graduated from the Kazan Zhiganov State Conservatory as a musicologist. She worked as the Artistic director of the Volga and Ural regional Composers House, the Director of the Record Studio of the TV Company “Tatarstan – New Age”, the Executive director of the International TV Tatarian Songs festivals. She is also a producer and the musical director of the documentary movies devoted to the Tatarian artists. At the moment Leila Monasypova is the Artistic director of the Sofia Gubaidulina Contemporary Music Centre in  Kazan.

Among the projects are the concert series “Sofia Gubaidulina Sound Spaces”, the regularly festival “Sofia Sound House”, the art-project “Contemporary art and music”, the Children Musical lectures, etc.

Sergej Newski, composer (Germany/Russia)

Sergej Newski was born in Moscow in 1972. He studied composition with Jörg Herchet at the Hochschule für Musik in Dresden, and with Friedrich Goldmann at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. There he also studied music theory and pedagogy with Hartmut Fladt. Masterclasses with Vinko Globokar and Matthias Spahlinger, meetings with Helmut Lachenmann, Beat Furrer and Helmut Oehring, and contacts with the free improvisation scene in Berlin have all had a lasting influence on his development as a composer. Since 1994 his music has been performed at the leading international New Music festivals, including the Donauechingen Festival, Wien Modern, Éclat, the Gaudeamus Music Week, the Berliner Festwochen, the ISCM World New Music Days, the Moscow Territoryfest, and UltraSchall. He has received commissions from, among others, the Deutsche Staatsoper Unter den Linden, the Berlin Konzerthaus, Ruhrtriennale, Klangforum Wien, the Scharoun Ensemble, the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, etc. Interpreters of his music include not only Klangforum Wien, the Neue Vokalsolisten and Ensemble Modern, but also the Nieuw Ensemble, Musikfabrik, the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, KNM Berlin, ensemble mosaik, as well as soloists and performers such as Teodoro Anzellotti, Natalia Pschenitschnikowa, and conductors like Peter Rundel, Johannes Kalitzke, Jürg Wyttenbach, Titus Engel, Enno Poppe, Teodor Kourentzis und Vladimir Jurowski. In 2006 Sergej Newski won 1st Prize at the Landeshauptstadt Stuttgart composition competition for his piece Fluss (2005 version). In addition, he has gained various scholarships, including those from the Villa Massimo/Casa Baldi, Villa Serpentara, Künstlerhof Schreyahn, Cité Internationale des Arts Paris, the Berlin Senate and the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. 2011-12 Sergej Newski is music curator for the project Platform, a series of events organized by the Center for Contempoary Art Vinzawod in Moscow, supported by the Russian Cultural Ministry. 2012- guest lecturer for composition at State University of St. Petersburg. Sergej Newski lives both in Berlin and in Moscow.