PROFESSORS OF VIII ACADEMY
Chaya Czernowin, composer (Israel/U.S.A.)
Chaya Czernowin was born and brought up in Israel. After her studies in Israel, at the age of 25, she continued studying in Germany (DAAD grant), the US, and then was invited to live in Japan (Asahi Shimbun Fellowship and American NEA grant) Tokyo, in Germany (a fellowship at the Akademie Schloss Solitude) and in Vienna. Her music has been performed throughout the world, by some of the best orchestras and performers of new music, and she has held a professorship at UCSD, and was the first woman to be appointed as a composition professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria (2006–2009), and at Harvard University, USA (2009 and on) where she has been the Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music. Together with Jean-Baptiste Jolly, the director of Akademie Schloss Solitude near Stuttgart and with composer Steven Kazuo Takasugi, she has founded the summer Academy at Schloss Solitude, a biannual course for composers. Takasugi and Czernowin also teach at Tzlil Meudcan, an international course based in Israel founded by Yaron Deutsch of Ensemble Nikel.
Czernowin’s output includes chamber and orchestral music, with and without electronics. Her works were played in most of the significant new music festival in Europe and also in Japan Korea, Australia, US and Canada. She composed 3 large scale works for the stage: Pnima…ins Innere (2000, Munich Biennale) chosen to be the best premiere of the year by Opernwelt yearly critic survey, Adama (2004/5) with Mozart’s Zaide (Salzburg Festival 2006) Adama has a second version written with Ludger Engles, with an added choir which was presented in Freiburg Stadttheater (2017). The opera Infinite Now was written in 2017. The piece, combines/ superimposes materials of the first world war (Luk Perceval theater piece “FRONT”) with the short story Homecoming by Can Xue. Also this opera was chosen as the premier of the year in the international critics survey of Opernwelt. Czernowin was appointed Artist in residence at the Salzburg Festival in 2005/6 and at the Lucern Festival, Switzerland in 2013. Characteristic of her work are working with metaphor as a means of reaching a sound world which is unfamiliar; the use of noise and physical parameters as weight, textural surface (as in smoothness or roughness etc), problematization of time and unfolding and shifting of scale in order to create a vital, visceral and direct sonic experience. all this with the aim of reaching a music of the subconscious which goes beyond style conventions or rationality.
In addition to numerous other prizes, Czernowin represented Israel at Uncesco composer’s Rostrum 1980; was awarded the DAAD scholarship (’83–85); Stipendiumpreis (’88) and Kranichsteiner Musikpreis (’92), at Darmstadt Fereinkurse; IRCAM (Paris) reading panel commission (’98); scholarships of SWR experimental Studio Freiburg (’98, ’00, ’01 etc); The composer’s prize of Siemens Foundation (’03); the Rockefeller Foundation, (’04); a nomination as a fellow to the Wissenschaftkolleg Berlin (’08); Fromm Foundation Award (’09); and Guggenheim Foundation fellowship (’11); Heidelberger Kunstlerinen Preis (’16); The WERGO portrait CD The Quiet (5 orchestral pieces) has been awarded the Quarterly German Record Critics’ Award (’16 ). She was chosen as a member of the Akademie der Kuenste in Berlin in 2017.
Czernowin’s work is published by Schott. Her music is recorded on Mode records NY, Wergo, Col Legno, Deutsche Gramophone, Kairos, Neos, Ethos, Telos and Einstein Records.
Santiago Tomás Díez Fischer, composer (Switzerland)
Born in Argentina, Diez-Fischer studied composition and choir conducting in the Argentinean University UCA. After one year at the Ircam’s cursus, he studied with Rebecca Saunders at Berlin. From 2014, he is Assistant profesor at the Haute Ecole of Music of Geneva.
He has received various scholarships including Eichstätt-Ingolstadt University, Germany (2003), Antorchas Foundation, Argentina (2004), a scholarship given by the Embassy of France, Mozarteum Argentine and “Cité Internationale des Arts” and has been awarded with the following prizes: SCRIME 2003 (France), Música Viva 2003 and 2005 (Portugal), IMEB Bourges 2007 (France), Prix Joan Guinjoan 2009 (Spain), Clang Cut Book Berlin 2013, etc.
He has been commanded various pièces by ensembles, institutions and Festivals: Borealis Festival (Norway), Ensemble Le Balcon -opera- (France), Ensemble Vortex (Switzerland), Ensemble Batida (Switzerland), Ernst Von Siemens Musikstiftung for an ensemble l’arsenale’s commission, Ensemble KDM Berlin, Ensemble Dal Niente, etc.
In 2016, he created the ensemble Container at Geneva, whose main activity is to premiere pièces from composers of all countries in Switzerland
Colin Roche, composer (France)
A French composer born October 27, 1974 in Venissieux.
Born into a family of musicians, a pianist trained at the Saint-Étienne Conservatory, Colin Roche, who obtained a diploma in political sciences, studied at the Lyons Regional Conservatory, the University of Rouen, and then at the Paris Conservatory with Philippe Leroux. The holder of a master’s degree in composition and a DEA in musicology, he is also interested in literature, particularly the poetry of Francis Ponge, as well as in the visual arts. His compositions have often been the result of encounters, notably with the visual artistes Simon Artignan and Jean-Marc Poyet. Roche’s research starts with neutral, everyday objects and translates them into sound. Like note books, like the successive sketches of a progression, his works, intimate and excluding orchestral forces, are built up within the listening process and the relationship to the musical object. His works include Réflexions sur le Carnet (2000),Ground Zero (de mon écriture) (2002), Bristol… puis souffle (2005), La robe des choses (2006), Érotique de l’allumette (2008), Le volet en jalousies (propriété du soupir) (2010).
David Lefkowitz, composer (U.S.A.)
Composer, music theorist, and professor David S. Lefkowitz holds degrees in music composition from Cornell, University of Pennsylvania, and Eastman. He has won international acclaim, having works performed in Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Russia, Ukraine, Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands, Great Britain, France, Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Spain, Canada, Mexico, Israel, and Egypt. He has won national and international competitions, including the Fukui Harp Music Awards Competition (twice), and ASCAP Young Composers Competition. In addition, he has won prizes and recognition from NACUSA, the Guild of Temple Musicians, Chicago Civic Orchestra, Washington International Competition, Society for New Music’s Brian M. Israel Prize, the ALEA III International Competition, and Gaudeamus Music Week. Recent commissions include works for the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, Suzana Bartal, Irina Donskaia of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, Grace Cloutier of the Hartford Conservatory, the Sibelius Piano Trio, and the Russian String Orchestra (Chamber Orchestra Kremlin), Misha Rachlevsky, director. His CD Harp’s Desire, containing about 80 minutes of his music for harp, was recently released on Albany Records, and his Ruminations for the Sibelius Piano Trio was recently released on Yarlung Records.
As a music theorist Dr. Lefkowitz has researched “meta-theoretical” issues such as the process of segmentation and the internal structure of set-classes, Schoenberg’s piano music and has written two textbooks: Music Theory: Syntax, Function, and Form and Analysis of Post-Tonal Music: A Parametric Approach.
GUESTS OF VIII 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.
Elena Cheremnykh, music critic, expert of the Golden Mask Prize (Moscow)
Elena Cheremnykh is music critic, expert of the Golden Mask Prize, the author of more than 2500 articles and two researches devoted to Moscow Big Symphony Orchestra and State Symphony Orchestra of Tatarstan Republic. She was born in Kazan, graduated from Moscow Conservatory Theory Department. From 1997 till 2003 she was the Music browser of the Kommersant Newspaper. In 2005 she was a head of the press and the express reviewer of the I International Pianists Competition named after. S. Richter. In 2008 she directed the Culture department of the newspaper “Gazeta”. In 2011 she was the official website author, analyst and reviewer of the official blog of the XIV Competition. P. I. Tchaikovsky. Elena Cheremnykh collaborated with the editions of “Vremya Novostei”, “Moscow News”, “Russian Journal”, GlobalRuss.ru, Internet portal Infox. In recent years she is the author of the Vedomosti newspaper, the Forum magazine, a special correspondent of the Business Online portal (Kazan), an expert of the Golden Mask (2013, 2015), a member of the Golden Mask jury (2018), a moderator of the Discussion Club at the “Diaghilev Festival” (Perm)
Valentina Tilda Jansen, producer, art-manager (Kaliningrad)
Valentina Tilda Jansen is a producer and project manager. Since 2003 she has been working in music as a booking agent, live shows promoter and artist manager. She put on around 100 public and private shows mainly in Moscow, St.Petersburg, and managed famous Russian pop-band Tesla Boy. Her clients list includes brands like Sberbank, Volkswagen, Europa Plus Radio, Afisha Picnic, InStyle Magazine, cultural institutions like Pro Helvetia Swiss Art Council, Danish Embassy, Norwegian Embassy, Embassy of Iceland and Department of Culture of Moscow city. She is a member of great team that developed a really special place on earth – Nikola-Lenivets art-park. Currently she is based at the Baltic Sea shore in Kaliningrad and work with selected music names (promoter & manager for Hauschka (Germany) and Kings of convenience (Norway) for Russia), contemporary art, educational events and coordinate local Centre of applied urbanism (CAU).