Sivan Eldar
The work of composer Sivan Eldar has been described as “resolutely of our time” (Opera Forum), “striking in its singularity and finesse” (ResMusica), "with a unique sensitivity to dramaturgy" (Diapason), “exceptionally expressive” (Bachtrack), “a form of trance” (Ôlyrix), “ethereal and truly distinguished” (Nieuwe Noten), “a contemporary gem” (Les Inrockuptibles), “Vividly imagined” (The Boston Globe), and “luxurious and rapturous” (SF Classical Voice).
Eldar’s music has been performed at many of today’s leading festivals and halls, including the Venice Biennale, Louvre Museum, Boston Symphony Hall, Théatre du Châtelet, Pompidou Centre (Festival ManiFeste), Maison de la Radio (Festival Présences), Luxembourg Philharmonic (Rainy Days Festival), Musikverein (Wien Modern), DiMenna Center (TIME:SPANS Festival), Ultraschall Festival, November Music Festival, Baerum Kulturhus, and the opera houses of Lille, Montpellier, Nancy and Marseille among others.
As a collaborator, she works frequently with writers, directors, dancers, and visual artists, and has held residencies through the Fulbright Foundation, Civitella Ranieri Foundation, MacDowell, Camargo Foundation, Villa Albertine, Cité Internationale des Arts, Royaumont Foundation, and Snape Maltings. Her sound installations have been presented at the MahN musuem in Neuchatel, MUSEC museum in Lugano, Brooklyn Public Library, Konfrontationen and Impuls Festivals in Austria, and Catherine Clark Gallery in San Francisco.
Eldar began her musical education at the age of 5, studying classical piano and voice. At the age of 15 she moved to the United World College in New Mexico, where she focused on music while also becoming involved in environmental and political work. She continued her studies in Boston at the New England Conservatory (BM), where she studied music composition, piano and ethnomusicology, alongside courses in gender studies and ethics. In 2009 she moved to California to pursue her PhD in composition at UC Berkeley with Franck Bedrossian, Edmund Campion, Cindy Cox and Myra Melford, with a diploma in new media studies at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) and the Berkeley Center for New Media (BCNM). She then moved to Paris for training at the Institut de Recherche Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) under Hèctor Parra (Cursus 2016-17). Since 2018 she has been in residence at IRCAM, working primarily with computer music designer Augustin Muller and head researcher Jean-Louis Giavitto.
In addition to her work as a composer, Eldar has served on the theory faculty of the Department of Music at UC Berkeley, and on the composition faculty of the John Adams Young Composers Program (2009-16), the IlSuono Academy (2023) and Voix Nouvelles Academy (2024). From 2019-22, she was composer-in-residence at Opéra Orchestre National de Montpellier, where she led several international workshops for emerging composers, including “Paroles et musique” with director and writer Ted Huffman. Together with her longtime collaborator writer Cordelia Lynn she composed her first opera Like flesh, which won the 2021 Fedora Opera Prize (a co-commission from Opéra de Lille, Opéra National de Montpellier, Opéra National de Lorraine, and IRCAM, in collaboration with director Silvia Costa and conductor Maxime Pascal). She is currently working on her second chamber opera with collaborators Ganavya Doraiswamy (vocalist, writer) and Peter sellars (director) for Festival d’Aix-on-Provence in 2025. She is a 2022 Rome Prize winner (French Academy in Rome - Villa Medici), and a 2023 New Musical Talent Award winner (SACD). Her music is published by Durand-Universal Music Classical.
This week, mayor Anne Hidalgo unveiled the restored Stravinsky fountain by Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely. For the occasion, I was commissioned by IRCAM and the Pompidou Center to create a work inspired by the fountain’s sculptures. I joined forces with poet Laura Vazquez to create l’eau, la colonne, le fer. You can listen to it at the location of the fountain, or online here, or this spring at the Pompidou Center.
Work on the new opera continues! This time at the Camargo Foundation, where Ganavya and I are spending one month developing the libretto. It’s truly a gift to be back in this studio by the sea, where I composed the first scenes of Like Flesh back in 2021. A big thank you to Julie Chenot and the Villa Albertine for making this possible. If you’re in the Marseille area, come join us for a public presentation on October 25th!
Nine Jeweled Deer, my new opera-in-development with Ganavya Doraiswamy and Peter Sellars, has just been selected for an incubator fellowship at the Royaumont Foundation. We are thrilled about this opportunity to reunite in Royaumont next Spring for a week of intense musical work with the ensemble. More info coming soon!
My week as guest composer at the 2023 IlSuono Contemporary Music Week just came to an end. A beautifully rewarding experience mentoring 14 composers from around the world, and hearing their world premiers played with care, precision, and sensitivity by Ensemble Suono Giallo.
The SACD (society of authors and composers in the performing arts) has announced their prize winners for 2023 in the categories of cinema, television, radio, theater, choreography, and music. I am honoured to be the recipient of the New Talent Prize in music, and to stand alongside Joël Pommerat, Cédric Klapisch, and Sonia Wieder-Atherton among other wonderful artists. Official announcement here.
Last week, Peter, Ganavya and I united in Rome with three collaborators: Mrudangam artist Rajna Swaminathan, cellist Severine Ballon, and computer music designer Augustin Muller. We worked through sketches of musical scenes and and explored form and text through improvisation. The week-long workshop culminated in an open-session performance, which was the first musical taste of the new opera that we are developing, Nine Jeweled Deer. Next step: a residency at the Camargo foundation to finalize the libretto. A huge thank you to the Villa Medici, Villa Albertine, Camargo Foundation, and IRCAM for making this workshop possible!
Next month, the group exhibition Una Linea Storta Tesa will open at the Villa Medici, and a book has been commissioned to accompany it. It contains a very special article by writer and philosopher Simon(e) Van Saarloos: A fictional love letter that traces my music through our friendship over the past seven years. A PDF version will be available later this summer, but until then, I invite you to read it if you have a chance to visit the exhibit in person.
This fall I was commissioned by IRCAM to create a new work for the re-inauguration of the iconic Stravinsky Fountain. I invited poet Laura Vazquez to write a new text for the occasion, and last week we met at IRCAM to record it. Thanks to RIM Etienne Demoulin and sound engineer Sylvain Cadars we were greeted by an ASMR-worthy mic setup complete with a binaural head, and it was great fun. The work will stream online from June 7th, as part of the 2023 ManiFeste Festival, and will travel to the Pompidou Center as a sound installation in Spring 2024.
Anterior Study for Electric Strings was premiered at Eclat Festival last month by guitarist Nadav Lev, and the live radio broadcast is coming up later this month. Meanwhile, also in the German-speaking world, Marie-Therese Rudolph featured Solicitations and Heave in her radio program on ORF Radio Wien, alongside Haas’ String quartet #11. You can listen here.
A little over a year ago accentus premiered After Arethusa at the Venice Biennale. And in a little over a year they will premiere our second work together, this time with soloist Ganavya Doraiswamy, co-commissioned with Festival Saint-Denis, Latvian Radio choir, and Spirito Choir. I am thrilled about this special project in celebration of accentus’ 30th anniversary, and about our future monograph CD together. More in this interview with Charles Arden for Olyrix.
2023 opens with the revival of Archive[s], a duo for violin and cello with video projection that I wrote back in 2010. On Wednesday it will be performed by Schallfeld ensemble in Vienna, and in March by MUSIQA Collective in Houston. Full details on the events page.
My string quartet Solicitations, which premiered in 2018, has been touring Europe and the US this Fall. Diotima Quartet brought it to Wien Modern Festival alongside works by Neuwirth, Furrer, and Haas (more in this review from DiePress). While Mivos Quartet gave its US premiere in NY, then toured it in California, Pennsylvania, and Paris. More info in the events page.
My new trio Dreams amongst hers premiered last week in Aix-en-Provence by the exquisite Marie-Laure Garnier, Shuichi Okada, and Emmanuel Jacquet. Through invented phonemes and consonants, it was an exercise in sound imbued with meaning. Diapason Magazine described it as an “Intensely poetic dialogue… a play on dreams”.
Like Flesh travelled to Musica Festival this month, with three performances at Lorraine National Opera. Crescendo Magazine described it as an “original, strange, beautiful and timely operatic experience” that “takes us on a sensory, musical, sonic and visual adventure.” The local Est Republicain described it as a work of “total immersion… great beauty… which leads us to a trance” while La Fleure du Dimanche described it as “Poetic and political with mesmerising music” “posing intimate questions about love, fidelity, and normativity with delicacy and tenderness” and “modern yet completely accessible, and above all sensitive and moving. A great success!”. See HERE for more reviews, videos and photos.
My year amongst Indian peacocks, Egyptian obelisks, and Ovidian marbles has officially begun. It will be dotted with concerts and talks, beginning with the White Night event on November 17th, and leading up to the annual expo on June 9th. More updates to come.
Streaming of the film version of Like Flesh on medici.tv, directed by David Daurier for Camera Lucida Productions. Free streaming available here until July 21, 2022. On-demand streaming for subscribers available until July 22, 2027.
Performance of a new work for choir and electronics, featuring vocalist Ganavya Doraiswamy and accentus choir, under the baton of Sigvards Klava. Co-commissioned by accentus, Latvian Radio Choir, and Festival Saint-Denis. More about the project in this interview with Charles Arden. Full details coming soon.
Performance of a new work for choir and electronics, featuring vocalist Ganavya Doraiswamy and accentus choir, under the baton of Sigvards Klava. Co-commissioned by accentus, Latvian Radio Choir, and Festival Saint-Denis. More about the project in this interview with Charles Arden. Full details coming soon.
Composition faculty at the 2024 Voix Nouvelles Academy alongside composers Francesco Fillidei and Bernhard Lang. This year’s focus is on opera creation. More information here.
World Premiere of a new work for choir and electronics, featuring vocalist Ganavya Doraiswamy and accentus choir, under the baton of Sigvards Klava. Co-commissioned by accentus, Latvian Radio Choir, and Festival Saint-Denis. More about the project in this interview with Charles Arden. Full details coming soon.
A weeklong musical residency with Peter sellars, Ganavya Doraiswamy, and members of the ensemble, for our opera-in-development Nine Jeweled Deer. Made possible thanks to the Royaumont Foundation, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and IRCAM.
Radio broadcast of Solicitations, recorded live by Mivos Quartet at the 2023 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Also on the broadcast are UK and world premiers by Saunders, Frey, Coskunseven, Lizée, Sarapova. Available here for streaming until the end of December.
UK premiere of Solicitations (2018) by Mivos Quartet. Also on the program are works by Lewis, Threadgill, and Morishita.. Part of the 2023 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Tickets available here.
Inauguration of the newly-restored Stravinsky Fountain by Niki de Saint Phalle et Jean Tinguely, accompanied by the official launch of the sound installation l’eau la colonne le fer, commissioned by IRCAM and the Pompidou Center for the City of Paris. Full event details here. Listen to the composition online here.
Sivan Eldar is published and represented by Editions Durand / Universal Music Publishing Group. For enquiries about performances, promotion, and score hire, please contact the Paris office HERE. For all other enquiries, please fill out this form: