Past News
2024
I am thrilled to have been awarded an Opera America Discovery Grant for Nine Jewelled Deer, my upcoming opera with Ganavya Doraiswamy, Peter Sellars and Lauren Groff. We are looking forward to using the grant to help bring the opera to US audiences in a future season. Official announcement here.
London - Aix - Brussels - Salzburg. Summer is festival season. But also teaching season. June started with a workshop at the Royal Opera House with legendary singer Aruna Sairam, who will be joining us as soloist for Nine Jewelled Deer. July started with a trip to Festival d’Aix, where we visited the venue where Nine Jewelled Deer will premiere next summer. From there, a train to Brussels, where I had the privilege of mentoring a very talented group of composers at the BE Connect academy alongside Ensemble Fractales and Thierry De Mey. Next: Salzburg Festival followed by Voix Nouvelles Academy, where I will be mentoring another group of talented composers as they create their first opera!
The last stop on accentus’ tour was also its most majestic, with an audience of over 800 at the auditorium of La Seine Musicale. Cult News described it as “A truly moving premiere […] a captivating work, combining Western and Eastern sonorities. An undeniable success.” While Olyrix described the evening as “a combination of music, text, atmosphere and interpretation that both illuminates and enlightens”, accentus’ interpretation as “crystal-clear, delicate, and supple”, and Ganavya’s performance as “an infinite play on softness that builds up to a momentous and resonant call for liberation.” More info about future performances by Latvian Radio Choir, Spirito, and Festival Saint Denis coming soon.
My love child with Ganavya Doraiswamy just had its world premiere at the magnificent Chapelle Corneille alongside Rachmaninov’s radiant Vespers. An immense thank you to Sigvards Klava and accentus choir for bringing the work to life with so much care. Next on their tour: Maison de la Culture in Bourges and La Seine Musicale in Paris. Until then, you can check out a few video excerpts here.
Last week, Peter, Ganavya and I united the full ensemble for 5 intense days of work on our upcoming opera Nine Jewelled Deer. A huge thank you to Dana Barak (clarinet), Aakash Mittal (sax), Rajna Swaminathan (Mmudangam/synth), Nurit Stark (violin), Severine Ballon (cello), Augustin Muller (electronics), and Luca Bagnoli (sound engineer) for joining us on this journey, and to Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, IRCAM, and Royaumont Foundation for supporting it. We are looking forward to coming back in October for the second phase of our residency!
I was honored to serve on this year’s jury for the 2024 International Sonosfera Ambisonics Competition (ISAC) alongside IRCAM’s Frank Madlener, Philippe Langlois, and Markus Noisternig. The competition will bring 3 prize-winning HOA compositions to IRCAM’s Espace de Projection for a public concert on March 22nd. Keep an eye out for the press release.
2023
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 next spring at the Grand Palais.
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.
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.
2022
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.
David Daurier of Camera Lucida Productions, together with B Media, have created a stunning film version of the opera Like Flesh, which premiered online this past weekend. You can stream it on Medici.tv until July 2027 (paid subscription) or on Opera Vision for free until January 2023.
Just back from LA, where a new collaboration is being born with Peter Sellars and Ganavya Doraiswamy. It’s the very beginning still, and a new musical direction, so more about that in the Fall. But meanwhile, a very big thank you to the Villa Albertine - the new residency program of the French Cultural Services in the US - for making the trip possible.
My residency at MacDowell got rescheduled twice due to COVID, which meant that instead of working here franticly on Like Flesh, I get to take long walks in the company of trees, read plays by Annie Baker at the library, and go swimming with new friends. A breath of new inspiration after the opera premiere.
While the Words and Music workshop that I led with writer/director Ted Huffman came to an end last July, the operatic scenes that were created as part of it are premiering today in a beautifully filmed version by Opéra de Montpellier. I invite you to watch the six new works by composers Alex Ho, Diana Syrse, Dan Chappell , Kirsten Milenko, Ole Hübner and Juta Pranulyté and their collaborators HERE.
After three intense years of work, Like Flesh was born last month at Lille Opera, then travelled to Montpellier Opera as part of its French tour. The press are calling it “an absolute success” (Forum Opera), “astounding” and “innovative” (Liberté Hebdo), “carefully perfected” (Opera Online), “of great refinement” (ResMusica), a “seductive and moving personal universe” (Anaclase), “exceptionally expressive” (Bachtrack), “an operatic revelation” (Premiere Loge), “a contemporary gem” (Les Inrockuptibles), “a kind of magic” (Croix du Nord) and a “bold and intense sonic immersion” (Midi Libre). See HERE for more reviews, videos and photos.
In this one-hour interview with Laurent Vilarem for France Musique’s “Carrefour de la creation” I discuss my recent works leading up to Like Flesh, and am joined by Cordelia Lynn and Augustin Muller. For more about Like Flesh, have a listen also to my interview with Alexander Jamar for Opera Forum’s podcast “Le Bel Aujourd’hui”.
2021
Next month, Like Flesh will receive its world premiere at Opéra de Lille, and little by little I’m starting to introduce it to the world. In this interview for Opéra Magazine, I sat down with journalist Marguerite Haladjian to discuss my inspiration, work-process, and much more. I invite you to read it here.
The Song About the Child, my choral piece with Palestinian poet Salman Masalha, is one of those unique works that enjoy yearly resurrection. Last month it was thanks to Coro Allegro, who performed it at Boston Symphony Hall as part of the Terezin Music Foundation’s annual gala. The Boston Musical Intelligencer called it “gorgeous” and “beautifully keening,” and the whole evening “meaningful and poignant”. Check out the full review HERE.
After Arethusa, my latest choral work, had its public world premiere at the Venice Biennale last month. Marcus Creed led the performance by accentus choir, with countertenor Guilhem Terrail as soloist. It was joyful to have Cordelia there with me: you can read her text HERE, and an interview with Accentus HERE. The next stops on accentus’ tour: November Music Festival in the Netherlands, Corneille Chapel in Rouen, and the Louvre Auditorium in Paris.
The group exhibition Sur Papier opened on May 8th at the Museum of Art and History in Neuchâtel, and the exhibition book Sur Papier. Su Carta (published by Scheidegger und Spiess AG, Verlag) was just released to accompany it. It contains a specially-commissioned article by musician and scholar Madison Greenstone, titled Space, Time, Surface, Perspective, in response to my installation Papier Sonore | Pigments Vivants. It is available for purchase HERE.
Ted Huffman and I were back at Montpellier Opera last month to oversee the production of six new operatic miniatures created by young artists in our workshop Words and Music. The concert was beautifully filmed, and will be broadcast next Spring. Other teachings this month included a guest lecture in Katie Mitchell’s Women Opera Makers Workshop at Festival d’Aix (where I also serve as mentor), a guest lecture at Thailand’s Mahidol University, and an upcoming guest lecture at UC Santa Cruz.
Six incredible weeks at the Civitella Ranieri Foundation just came to an end, giving birth to a new scene from Like Flesh, new friendships and collaborations, and a few very memorable encounters with Piero della Francesca.
I am thrilled to announce that Like flesh, my new opera with writer Cordelia Lynn, director Silvia Costa, and Le Balcon ensemble, commissioned by Opéra de Lille and IRCAM, is the winner of the 2021 Fedora Opera Prize. The official announcement is available here. A short press video about the opera is available here.
This evening, my composition Heave will open IRCAM’s 2021 ManiFeste Festival at the Pompidou Center. To mark the event, I sat down with Transfuge Magazine to discuss my past and present work at IRCAM, and much more. You can read the full portrait article here.
In October I was commissioned by the Museum of Art and History (MahN) to create an installation for their new exhibition Sur Paper. After a period of planning and tests in collaboration with IRCAM computer music designer Augustin Muller, I was thrilled to be in Neuchâtel last week for the building phase. The exhibition opens to the public on May 9th, and will run until September 5th. Full information here.
I’ve been at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis for a month now working on my opera Like Flesh. It’s been a real gift of time and space, as well as a nourishing community of fellow artists and scholars. A big thank you to Camargo’s partner institutions - the Royaumont Foundation and Lille opera - for making this possible.
I was at Montpellier Opera last weekend for performances of two of my works - one for choir, one for orchestra - under the baton of Rebecca Tong. The concert was expertly filmed, with short interviews woven in about each work with Benjamin François of France Musique. You can watch the interview here and the concert here from June-November 2021.
Like flesh, my new opera with writer Cordelia Lynn, director Silvia Costa, and Le Balcon ensemble, is one of nine new operas shortlisted for the 2021 Fedora prize. It’s a great honour to be nominated alongside composers Kaija Saariaho, Olga Neuwirth, and Jamie Mann, among others. I invite you to read more about the project and vote for us here.
Once Loved, for two voices and accordion, was commissioned by Musicatreize ensemble and Philharmonie de Paris in celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth. The premiere has been rescheduled for May 2021, but you can read about the composition here, and also discover the story behind this ambitious project by Musicatreize involving twelve composers from across Europe.
2020
In 2010 I created a work for guided improvisation, The Four Elements, as an experiment in Myra Melford’s seminar for composers/improvisers at UC Berkeley. After 10 dormant years, composer/improviser Amnon Wolman decided to breathe new life into this work together with his ensemble Musica Nova as part of the 23rd Israel Music Fest. I was surprised and intrigued. The concert, titled “Endings and Beginnings and Endings and Beginnings” was captured beautifully on camera, and is available for viewing until the end of January HERE.
The first part of “Words and Music” - a 4-part workshop for young opera makers - came to an end yesterday. Ted Huffman and I brought together 14 young creators from Australia to Philadelphia to Mexico to Lithuania to discuss opera today, and to begin collaborating on new works. It was an inspiring experience, and now we look forward to the in-person sessions at Opéra de Montpellier in April and June.
While many of the bigger European festivals got cancelled this month, the intimate Klangraum Festival in Stuttgart went ahead with a specially-curated program of live-streamed performances. In keeping with tradition, this involved a pre-concert talk, where I was joined by writer Cordelia Lynn. While the ephemeral performance of You’ll drown, dear by mezzo-soprano Christie Finn was only available for 24h, the talk remains available HERE.
After Arethusa - a new work for choir and electronics - was supposed to premiere by Accentus at Donaueschingen Festival this month, then travel to the Netherlands and France. But this Fall hasn’t been the best period for concerts, and the premiere is now rescheduled for September 2021 at the Venice Biennale. Meanwhile, for a small taste before next Fall, here is the press release that just came out from Durand.
In November 2019 director Silvia Costa joined our team for the opera Like Flesh. In February 2020, with a first draft of the libretto in hand, I started working on the music at IRCAM, but a few weeks later the pandemic hit, and we were all confined to zoom meetings. This week, we were all finally able to reunite in person, and the big work has officially begun!
A few months ago, Juliet Fraser released the album “Spilled Out from Tangles,” which included a new solo version of Heave, written especially for her. Tomorrow, at 7:30pm, Juliet was supposed to give Heave its US premiere at Time:Spans Festival in NY. But due to the travel restriction, Time:Spans commissioned a video instead. So on we went, Juliet and I, on this wild ride, searching for a creative team. And thanks to the magic of artistic director Noémie Dahan, this very special video was born.
In this one-hour tête-à-tête hosted by David Christoffel, composer Franck Bedrossian and I discuss music, anechoic chambers, fountain pens, and ASMR, with guest appearances by soprano Juliet Fraser and the New Gates Trio. It is available here for your enjoyment.
For this 20’ podcast, Saskia de Ville questioned me about my musical background (spoiler: you will hear a recording of me singing at age 2!), my inspirations, my work process and much more. It’s beautifully edited, with audio excerpts woven through. I invite you to listen here. And then to listen to some of the other podcasts in this series produced by ENOA.
Today is the official release date of Spilled Our from Tangles, soprano Juliet Fraser’s new CD of solo works for voice and electronics. I should have been in London for the release party and concert, but receiving it at home in Paris during this period of confinement was almost as joyful. I invite you to listen and order here. The CD includes a new solo version of Heave written especially for Juliet, alongside works by Lisa Ilean, Nomi Epestein, and Lawrence Dunn. And here’s a video of Juliet introducing the CD in her pajamas.
I’m very excited to be joining the MacDowell Colony this summer for the first time. I’ve been hearing stories about it for years. And incidentally, Cordelia Lynn (my artistic partner in crime) will be there too around the same time…
Two new interviews are out. One in Le Magazine of Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, and the other in Tchât of Théâtre du Châtelet. And if you’re into podcasts, listen to this whimsical episode by Chloé Kobuta: Un compositeur, c'est forcément mort ?
I am thrilled to have been awarded a Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship for summer 2021. I will be joining a long list of writers, visual artist, and composers, who have joyfully gathered at Civitella’s Umbrian castle since 1995 in search of inspiration, calm, and good wine.
2019
This composition with Amyra has been in the works for quite a long while, and sharing it with a full house at Opéra Berlioz was an incredible experience. Next performance is in March at Théâtre du Châtelet. Until then, here are some audio excerpts from the premiere.
This past summer I was contacted by filmmaker Léopold Gautier and musicologist Andrea Selina Contherr about a new series of video interviews with women creators. The screening happened in Paris earlier this month, while I was sitting on another panel about women composers in the orchestral world. Something’s in the air in France that’s for sure. You can watch the video here.
From September-November I’ve been leading my first series of workshops as composer-in-residence at Opéra Montpellier. The final concert, featuring new works for violin, percussion and electronics by eight young composers, will take place next week. Meanwhile, I was also invited to give a composition lecture at IRCAM to students in the Cursus program, as part of the seminar poésie-text. I discussed in depth my recent IRCAM projects You’ll drown, dear and Heave, as well as some upcoming projects. You can watch the full video here.
Starting this September I will begin a new position as composer-in-residence with the Opéra National Montpellier, led by artistic director Valérie Chevalier. Throughout the residency period, I will be working with the orchestra, the choir, and their respective soloists on several new commissions, leading up to the production of my opera Like flesh in 2022. I will also be leading several composition workshops. If you’re not familiar yet with the work of this opera house, I invite you to discover it with me.
For this public reading with the Gulbenkian Orchestra, Amyra had composed her own text and vocals, which she wove in and out of my orchestral textures. Her presence on the stage was very powerful. It’s been almost a year and a half since we first met at Apollo Theatre in Harlem, and it’s been quite a journey. Portugal news discussed the project with Luis Tinoco here. Stay tuned for the premiere in November.
Opéra de Lille, together with IRCAM and Ensemble Le Balcon, is commissioning Like Flesh for its 2021-22 season. Librettist Cordelia Lynn and I have been developing ideas for this opera for over a year. Cordelia will begin working on the libretto in September, and I will begin working on the music at IRCAM in January. For more information about the core themes we’ve been exploring, check out this video from our second developmental residency at Snape Matings last Fall.
Earlier this year, I was commissioned by the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris and the Opéra Orchestre National Montpellier to write a new work for voice and orchestra. I brought poet, activist, and R&B singer Amyra Leòn on board, and together we fleshed out our first ideas for the piece. I then went off to write the first draft for the orchestra, which was read last week by the Gulbenkian Orchestra. In July, Amyra will join me in Lisbon for the next reading, leading up to the premiere in November. Until then, here’s a little video press release about the upcoming premiere.
Being back in California is always a treat. The occasion: A week of guest lectures at my alma mater UC Berkeley, featured in the Townsend Center Magazine here. The other highlight: A concert by the Eco Ensemble. SF Classical Voice did a nice writeup of the concert, highlighting soprano Ann Moss’ “luxurious, almost rapturous singing” in You’ll drown, dear, and drawing an interesting parallel with Bluebeard’s Castle “where the crux of the story isn’t figuring out the man: It’s all about the woman’s inner life.” The full review is here.
Solicitations received its French premiere by Diotima Quartet a couple of days ago. The reviews in l’Humanité and Anaclase managed to capture some of the magic in Diotima’s performance. Maurice Ulrich described the work as “meditative, captivating, where one holds one’s breath in anticipation” while Michèle Tosi observed “a secret dramaturgy… one woven by infra-saturation, phantom sounds, and unexpected colors.” You can read the full reviews are here and here.
[Switch~] ensemble will be performing Tarr in NY next month. While this chamber piece was originally written for Divertimento ensemble in 2014, [Switch~] has made it their own, touring with it in CA, and now in NY. In preparation for the NY concert, clarinetist Madison Greenstone interviewed me about the work, which led to this very special article. Do read it if you have a chance.
2018
Thanks to Ilan Volkov, the director of Tectonics Festival in Tel Aviv, I got to work with two unique performers over the past few weeks: soprano Keren Motseri (who gave the Israeli premiere of You’ll drown, dear) and dancer Yuli Kovbasnian (with whom I explored my new persona as an improviser in a new show that we developed together). Tel Aviv seems to be bursting with creative energy these days, and I’m already looking forward to coming back in the Spring.
Cordelia and I just got back from the second residency for Like flesh - our opera-in-development. This time around we were very fortunate to have cellist Severine Ballon, dancer Vinicius Salles, and bass Jimmy Holliday join our team, which included movement director Joseph Alford, soprano Juliet Fraser, and actress Carolina Valdés. Footage from the open session performance at the Britten Pears Studio coming soon!
Leading up to the premiere on September 9th, Durand just released two short videos documenting my work on Heave over the past few months. They include some beautiful footage from the gardens at Royaumont, as well as footage from recording sessions at IRCAM. Take a look HERE.
For the past year Cordelia Lynn and I have been developing ideas for our joint opera Like flesh. Thanks to support from Snape Maltings and the European Network of Opera Academies (ENOA), we were able to design two residencies to explore some of the core themes in the opera, and to build a dream-team of artists to explore with: movement director Joseph Alford, soprano Juliet Fraser, voice and movement artist Elaine Mitchener, and actress Caroline Valdès. The first residency ended this weekend and it was nothing short of inspiring. The second residency in October will end with a public open session, so keep an eye out!
It was a great honor to be programmed on ManiFeste's "Monologues" concert at the Pompidou Center alongside Franck Bedrossian and Rebecca Saunders. You'll drown, dear (IRCAM Cursus 2017) opened the show, and received a lovely review from Michèle Tosi. Read it HERE.
This weekend Augustin Muller and I were invited to Royaumont to sit on a panel with Jean-Philippe Wurtz, the artistic director of the Voix Nouvelles Festival. We spoke about our new project HEAVE (a Royaumont/IRCAM/Ulysses co-commission), and also had a chance to test the electronics at the Carré Magique - Royaumont's unique "sonic garden" - where the work will be premiered in September. Special thanks to sound engineers Martin Antiphon and Manuel Poletti for enduring many hours in the garden with us on this unusually hot spring weekend!
It's been three years since my last visit to Prague, and five years since I lived there as a Fulbright fellow. What an honor to be invited back, this time by the Prague Spring Festival. The Martinu voices choir sounded great, the audience was warm, the acoustics were perfect... It felt like a real homecoming.
Soprano Juliet Fraser joined us at IRCAM today for a recording session. She sang through some sketches of Cordelia Lynn's new text, talking about lovers, mushrooms, bark and flesh. It was great fun!
And... I'm back at the Cité International des Arts! This time for a 6-month composition residency to work on pieces for Exaudi and Diotima. Paris keeps pulling be back.
I've spent the past week at IRCAM with computer music designer Augustin Muller. We are taking our first steps towards developing the electronics for our new work for Exaudi. This included a recording session in the anechoic chamber of some very delicate earthy sounds. It also included a special visit from playwright Cordelia Lynn, who had just finished the second half of the text!
2017
Tarr has been performed by a few different ensembles over the past few years, but Switch~ was the first to do it without a conductor. During our days together in Berkeley and San Francisco, I watched them make it their own, with love and sensitivity. It made for a wondrous week.
Last week I took a quick trip from London to Paris to meet with my new publisher Durand. We will be working on my new piece for Exaudi together, and on my new opera Like flesh. I am absolutely thrilled to be joining the Durand-Salabert-Eschig family!
I'm looking forward to returning to Royaumont next Fall with a new commission for Exaudi Vocal Ensemble! Over the next 9 months I'll be at IRCAM on and off developing the electronics, and in London working with Cordelia on the text and with Exaudi on new vocal techniques. More updates coming soon.
In her review of Festival de Royaumont, Michèle Tosi at ResMusica referred to me as the barefoot composer and compared any bed but one's to Sciarrino. Both are great compliments. Read her review HERE.
I've been hiding at an abbey for the past few weeks, listening to cows and mosquitos late at night, working on a nocturnal piece inspired by Fiona Sampson's beautiful poem Drowned Man. It's been intense and difficult. And also fun and exciting putting it all together with Juliet Fraser, Antoine Maisonhaute and Hélène Colombotti. They will perform it tomorrow in the abbey, at 17h45, just before the bells start ringing, with the sound of rain in the background...
Two years ago, set designer and director Aurélie Lemaignen introduced me to Rilke's play The White Princess. She read this section to me: "tout est le rêve que nous rêvons ; ce qui est court peut alors être long, ce qui est long l’est à n’en plus finir. Et le temps est espace." Time as space, she said, is your music.
A year later, through a commission from the Academie of the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, we began a collaboration with writer Cordelia Lynn on an operatic scene inspired by Rilke's play. It took us on a journey, which Aix documented beautifully in this interview. Yesterday evening, sopranos Jennifer Courcier and Magali Simard Galdes, and percussionist Dorian Selmi gave it a beautiful premiere at the festival.
Pierre Rigaudière at Diapason featured you'll drown, dear in his review of IRCAM's Festival ManiFeste earlier this week. Read it HERE (scroll all the way to the end of the article). My deepest thanks go to the production team at IRCAM for crafting every dimension of this performance in such a detailed and subtle way. This review is as much theirs as it is mine.
6 months in 9 minutes. This is the most collaborative works I have ever created. It wouldn't have been possible without the absolute dedication of Aurélie, Cordelia and Juliette. Even after so many rehearsals, I was moved at the premiere last night, watching and listening to the work we created together.
My composition for the Cursus has been in the works for the past few months, and the team at IRCAM has been documenting the process! Take a look HERE at episode 3 in this series of short video documentaries, where Juliette, Cordelia and I try out the first musical sketches for our composition you'll drown, dear, and receive feedback and advice from the brilliant Hèctor Parra.
The Cité International des Arts has been my home for the past 6 months. I have been to countless open studios (really I stopped counting), met artists from literally everywhere, learned how to do printmaking and carve wood...
Thanks to Ensemble Regards and the production team at the Cité, I was able to share my music with this wonderful creative community this past Monday. My deep thanks go to them and to everyone who came out on that rainy night.
2016
I was in NYC this past weekend to celebrate the work of two foundations that are very important to me: The Fulbright Foundation and the Terezin Music Foundation. They have played an important role in my personal and artistic growth. And they continue to play an important role in the lives of so many other artists and scholars. Many thanks to the members of Ghostlight Chorus for bringing this new music and poetry to life so beautifully!
I can still smell the ancient oak trees, the figs and rosemary, the low clouds... I am very thankful to Jonathan Kulp and William Plummer from the University of Lafayette for their hospitality, to the Lafayette Chamber Singers for their moving performance of The Song About the Child, and to the Acadiana Center for the Arts and International Alliance of Women in Music for putting it all together and including my voice on their panel on women in music. The Louisiana I got to discover through their eyes was magical.
My first month at IRCAM has just ended, and I'm excited to share my first experiment. Give it a listen HERE. Many thanks to Jack Stulz for trying out different viola preparations together. And to artist Dalia Meiri at the Cité des Arts for showing me how to carve a bow!
I'm thrilled to be joining the international community of artists at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris from August 2016 through May 2017!
In September I will begin a 10-month training and composition residency at the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) in Paris. I will be studying new tools in music technology and computer assisted composition with composer Hèctor Parra and the different research teams at IRCAM. I'm very excited about this opportunity to go deeper into MaxMSP, OpenMusic, Antescofo and other IRCAM tools, and to make music in this new environment.
2015
Spitfire Company is taking Sniper's Lake on the road again. This time to Stavanger (Norway) and Prague (CZ). In Stavanger they will be performing at Tou Scene, an unusual performance space where the dancers will be running towards the audience. Should be interesting!
It was so wonderful to get this CD in the mail this morning! It features my bass clarinet concerto Crumb Child along with beautiful pieces by Christiann Wolff, Bernhard Lang, Helmut Oehring, Petr Kotik, and other fellow composers from the 2013 Ostrava Days Festival. The performance is by the fantastic Czech clarinetist Irvin Venys and the equally fantastic Ostravska Banda Orchestra, under the baton of Carl Bettendorf.
Jeremy Eischler from the Boston Globe describes Mother Tongue as "vividly imagined" in his enthusiastic review of Sunday's concert. It's been a week. I'm back home in San Francisco. And I'm still thinking of that concert. And still feeling thankful to the Terezín Music Foundation and the Boston Children's Chorus (and their wonderful soloist Maddy Kline!). Now I just need to figure out what to do with all this new vocal music in my head...
A year ago I was commissioned by the Terezin Music Foundation to write two new choral works in honor of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi camps. Tomorrow these works will be heard for the first time in the US at Boston's magnificent Symphony Hall. I am so honored to be in the company of Andris Nelsons and members of the BSO, of fellow composers Pablo Ortiz and David Post, of the Boston Children's Choir and Coro Allegro, of poet Richard Blanco, and of the foundation's inspiring director Mark Ludwig.
As a teenager in Tel Aviv, I spent many hours at the Felicia Blumenthal Music Center on Bialik Street - one of the most beautiful and quaint spots in the city. When Yaron Deutsch from the Tzlil Meducan Festival told me that my new chamber work Bela would be performed there, I couldn't have been happier. And now that the score and parts are finished, and my ticket to Tel Aviv is booked, I'm really looking forward to my first rehearsal with the fantastic Musica Nova Ensemble.
Pierre-Andre Vallade and the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra made A Thousand Tongues sound like the most magical haunted forest… seriously, working with them was like a dream come true. And I felt honored that the performance was part of IRCAM’s Manifeste Academy & Festival. I’m pretty sure I got to meet more new people and hear more new music during those three weeks than I did during my whole 9-months residency in Paris….
Today I got the good news that I received the Alfred Hertz Memorial Traveling Scholarship to support my upcoming residency at IRCAM.