INTERNATIONAL ilSUONO CONTEMPORARY MUSIC WEEK
An Annual Summer Music Academy in Italy
PARTICIPANTS 2023
COMPOSITION
Fully Active Participants
-Category A: Mixed Media-
Yaroslava Snitko (Ukraine, 1991)
Yaroslava Snitko was born on January 24, 1991, in Kyiv, Ukraine. She began to study music composition at the age of 7 in Kosenko Music School No. 3 with Svitlana Ostrova. In 2006-2010 she studied in R. Glier Kyiv Institute of Music at Music Theory Department. There Yaroslava continued studying composition with Gennady Sasko. In 2010 she entered to Ukrainian National Tchaikovsky Academy of Music in Kyiv. There she studied at Composition Department in class of Professor Ludmila
Yurina. In 2017 Yaroslava completed her postgraduate studies in Department of World Music History under Professor Olena Korchova. Then, in September 2018 she defended thesis and got a degree of Candidate of Study of Art (comparable to PhD).
Yaroslava’s music career was mostly connected with teaching. She taught in Kyiv Children’s Music Schools No. 26 (2010) and No. 37 (2014-2016) and in British International School Ukraine (2018-2021). She also was performing on keyboards in music band of Victory Christian Church Kyiv for more than 8 years. Yaroslava composes music for piano, vocal, chamber ensembles and creates hybrid orchestral and ambient electronic compositions. Her compositions were performed by Kyiv Symphony Orchestra and Khreschatyk Academic Chamber Choir. In June 2022 her music was performed in project “Hissing Stars” organised by Jeremias Schwarzer in Nürnberg Hochschule für Music. In October 2022 participated in Impuls Festival of New Music Sachsen-Anhalt (Leipzig), where her composition performed ensemble Tempus Connex.
Connor Scroggins (United States, 1997)
Connor Scroggins is a composer who explores phenomenological relationships between perception and subtle yet visceral soundscapes to engage a flow of listening. He is currently seeking a PhD of Music Composition from University of North Texas. He recently completed a Master of Music from Bowling Green State University and previously received a Bachelor of Music from Arkansas State University in 2020. At Arkansas State’s Create@State research symposium, he presented on musique con-
crète instrumentale and won awards for his presentations on spectralism and musical logic. His current research interests include phenomenology and acoustic ecology. His works have been read and performed by Robin Meiksins, The Rhythm Method String Quartet, Hypercube, New Thread Quartet, Apply Triangle Trio, Parker String Quartet, Unheard-of//Ensemble, and The ___ Experiment. His music has been performed in the United States and Europe at ICMC, NYCEMF, SEAMUS National Conference, SPLICE Institute, NSEME, and the Saarburg Music Festival. He has participated in masterclasses from Clara Iannotta, Jason Eckardt, Augusta Read Thomas, Cort Lippe, Mari Kimura, Greg Wilder, Marina Kifferstein, and Stephanie Lamprea. He currently studies with Drew Schnurr and previously studied with Elainie Lillios, Timothy Crist, Mikel Kuehn, Christopher Dietz, Derek Jenkins, and Carrie Leigh Page.
Rúben Borges (Portugal, 1994)
Rúben Borges (1994) is a composer, performer, and multidisciplinary artist. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Music Composition from Escola Superior de Música, Artes e Espetáculo (ESMAE) in Porto and received a master’s degree inComposition with honors (cum laude) from the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp. Currently, he is studying at the Advanced Master’s Program in Contemporary Music under the guidance of the ICTUS ensemble and SPECTRA ensemble at the Royal Conser-
vatory/School of Arts in Ghent.
Has collaborated with several musicians from the Portuguese national panorama and was awarded in the 6th and 7th editionsof the “21st Century Composition Award”, organized by ARTEAM. In 2018 was a resident artist at the Estalagem da Ponta doSol Contemporary Music and Electronics Residency, in Madeira (Portugal). Recently, he integrated the European OperaAcademy as part of the EOA Lab (2021) on the creation of a micro-opera and in the International Opera Creation,Improvisation, and Performance Incubator (2022) with masterclasses in Lithuania, which culminated in the premiere of a smallopera. Co-founded the collaborative structure BANQUETE, of multidisciplinary research and creation in the arts, of which he is an associate researcher and creator.
His music has been heard in Belgium, Germany, Portugal, and Spain, including performances at the DDD Festival, the CycleEstado da Nação (Porto), the Aveiro_Síntese biennial, the Música Viva Festival, the Operafest Lisbon, the Synthesis - XIV Cycleof Contemporary Music, and the XII Ciclo de Musica Atual (Badajoz). Recent commissions and collaborations include works forthe Duartes Vocal Ensemble, Síntese - Contemporary Music Group, Hodiernus Ensemble, Arte no Tempo, and soloists AdamStarkie, Eva Boesch, Karin de Fleyt, Katie Porter, Keiko Murakami, and Marc Tooten.He has participated in masterclasses with Åke Parmerud, Francesco Filidei, Gilbert Nouno, Harrison Birtwistle, Jessie Marino, and Patricia Alessandrini, among others.
His music is published by Arte no Tempo and Babel Scores.Through non-hierarchical collaborative methods, he develops multi-art form pieces that explore the relations between music and performance art dealing with concepts such as body, space, moving image, and sound.
Francisco Corthey (Argentina, 1991)
Francisco Corthey was born on August 6, 1991, in Entre Ríos (Argentina). From an early age, he participated as a percussionist in many different musical projects, especially Argentine folk music and rock. At the age of 18 he moved to La Plata, Buenos Aires, where he completed a degree in Music Composition tutored by Mariano Etkin among others, and Orchestral Conducting. By that time, he took violin lessons with distinguished violinists from the Teatro Argentino de La Plata Symphony Orchestra,
and for three years he was a member of the Teatro Argentino Chamber Orchestra as principal second violin. He was also the percussionist of Tapeku'a, an Argentinian Littoral music band. In 2021 he received a Master’s degree in composition from the Georgia Southern University (USA), where he was tutored by Martin Gendelman. In Spring 2022, he completed an Artistic Diploma at the Grieg Academy - University of Bergen (Norway), tutored by Dániel Péter Biró. Since Fall 2022 he is a PhD candidate in composition at SUNY University at Buffalo.
He actively participated in several composition conferences and festivals such as TACEC Generation (Argentina 2018), with Simon Steen Andersen, Trio Catch and cellist Séverine Ballon; CEME Festival (Online Israel 2020/21) with Mauro Lanza and Meitar Ensemble; Darmstadt summer course (Online Germany 2021) where he had lessons with Chaya Czernowin, Mark Andre, George Lewis, and Isabel Mundry; Sounding Philosophy, organized by Dániel Péter Biró (Bergen, Norway), where he presented new compositions and had lessons with Marta Gentilucci and Samir Odeh-Tamimi, as well as workshops with Neue Vocalsolisten, Schola Heidelberg and Ensemble Aisthesis.
Sergei Leonov (Russia, 1994)
Sergei's artistic performances begin at the age of 4 while studying at a music school. During this period, he participated in many concerts and tours in Europe as a chorist or pianist. After entering the Superior Conservatory, he continued his career as an artist in the “Festino” vocal ensemble, which performed world and Russian premieres by contemporary composers. The ensemble is an integral part of the musical life of Saint Petersburg and Europe by participating in numerous exhibitions, ma-
ster classes, competitions, events and concerts dedicated to contemporary art. At the same time, Sergei continues his career as a composer and creates music for chamber ensembles of contemporary music, as well as music for cinema and theater. In 2019, together with his friends, he founded the artistic group “Content - ensemble". The group focuses on experimental and radical performances, exploring the vocal possibilities and the interactions of voice and electronics, performing pieces by Sergei Leonov and other young Russian composers. Among the most significant achievements of the group is participation in the festivals Sound Ways (2019, St. Petersburg), Diaghilev Festival (2021, Perm), Gamma Festival (2021, St. Petersburg). From 2019 until 2022 Sergei studied for a master's degree in composition at Geneva University of Music in the class of Michael Jarrell. He is currently studying to be a music teacher at the Lausanne higher pedagogical school while continuing his artistic career collaborating with various contemporary music ensembles, artists and producing solo performances of experimental electronic music in the field of science-art.
Thomas Gurin (United States, 1995)
Tom Gurin is a Paris-based composer and performer. He is a current Mortimer Hays Traveling Fellow from Brandeis University. He is the 2021-2022 recipient of a Fulbright-Harriet Hale Woolley Award at the United States Foundation in Paris and the only recipient of the Rosalind Swenson Fulbright Enrichment Award to extend his stay in France. In addition, Gurin is a Fellow of the Belgian American Educational Foundation. He is an alumnus of Yale University, the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris “Alfred
Cortot”, and the Royal Carillon School in Belgium.
At Yale, he earned a degree with honors in music composition studying with Kathryn Alexander and Konrad Kaczmarek. Upon graduating in 2018, Gurin received the Paul H. and Brigitte P. Fry Award for Excellence in the Performing Arts. He also received the Headland-Linck Scholarship in the Humanities in 2017.
Gurin has contributed to numerous international festivals. Most recently, he participated in the American Conservatory program in Fontainebleau (France), where he received the Marion Tournon-Branley prize for his sound sculpture combining music with architecture. In addition, he has participated in the highSCORE New Music Festival in Pavia, Italy, and the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival at Mannes School of Music in New York City, where he was an Emerging Composer Fellow. The Yale Symphony Orchestra, the National Youth Orchestra of China, the Sonus Foundation for New Music and Contemporary Performing Arts, and other ensembles around the world have performed his compositions.
Gurin has also been commissioned and published as a composer of music for the carillon (a keyboard instrument that originated in the sixteenth-century Low Countries). He won first prize in the 2022 Perpignan (France) Carillon Composition Contest. He received a Performance and Publication Award from the Johan Franco Composition Competition in 2021 and was a winner of the Composition Contest at the 74th Congress of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America. He was the carillonneur at Duke University from 2019-2021.
-CATEGORY B: ACOUSTIC-
Minzuo Lù (China, 1991)
Yuri Demetz (The Netherlands, 1995)
Minzuo Lù (1991 in Shanghai, China) is a composer and artist currently residing in Karlsruhe. She has studied Chinese calligraphy, western drawing, painting and piano since she was young. She studied composition with Prof. Wolfgang Rihm and Prof. Markus Hechtle in the soloist exam at the University of Music in Karlsruhe. Before that, she completed her bachelor's and master's degrees with Prof. Huang Lü (Shanghai) and Prof. Xiaoyong Chen (Hamburg). She has created about 50 works,
eight of which have won prizes at various international composition competitions in the USA, Canada, China, Austria, Italy, Portugal and Poland.
Danniel Ribeiro (Brazil, 1989)
Danniel Ribeiro is a Brazilian composer from Bahia. Recently, Danniel’s practice has explored instrumental music, developing ways to expand the use of instruments by way of bespoke techniques, preparations, practical sculptural (and found) objects, amplification, and transduced electronics.In Brazil, Danniel studied with Paulo Costa Lima and Wellington Gomes, composers who continued the cultural resistance of the Grupo de Compositores da Bahia (Group of Composers of Bahia). In 2012, 2014 and 2016,
he was awarded the Funarte Prize for Classical Composition and had multiple performances at the Biennial for Brazilian Contemporary Music in Rio de Janeiro. Additionally, he has been awarded research grants in Brazil and Canada, contributing to research projects in composition, music theory and analysis.
A recent development in Danniel's work is to explore/observe how different instrumental traditions could dialogue with each other. This compositional space could be claimed by the use of different orchestral instruments (in the Western concert music tradition) informing each other; the found object/instrumental preparation trend in New Music informing the design of instrumental gestures; or, and perhaps more challenging, how "instruments" from different cultural backgrounds or artistic contexts could dialogue and blend in the form of particular ways of producing sound.
Danniel was a composition fellow at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (CAN), Domaine Forget (CAN), Festival Musica (FRA), New Music on the Point (USA), DePaul University Residency for New Music (USA), among other festivals and institutions. Danniel has worked with ensembles such as L’instant Donné, Court- Circuit, JACK Quartet, RAGE Thormbones, Dal Niente, Eco and Paramirabo. He has had private lessons with Chaya Czernowin, Franck Bedrossian, Philippe Hurel, Mark Andre, Brian Ferneyhough, Clara Iannotta, Du Yun and Malin Bång.
Danniel completed his master’s degree in composition (M.Mus.) at McGill University in 2018, advised by Philippe Leroux. At McGill, Danniel also had music theory advising from Christopher Neidhöfer and Robert Hasegawa.
Currently, Danniel is based in the SF Bay Area (California, USA) where he is a PhD candidate in music composition at UC Berkeley studying with Edmund Campion, Ken Ueno, Myra Melford, and Carmine-Emanuele Cella.
Yuri Demetz is currently doing his master in composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig, with Prof. Dr. Fabien Lévy.
In 2019 he obtained his bachelor degree at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London, where he studied classical piano performance with Deniz Gelenbe and composition with Douglas Finch and Amir Konjani.
One of Yuri’s priorities as a composer is to be able to successfully combine the wildly
different styles of music that are most relevant to him personally, no matter how contrasting. He often even tries to emphasize these contrasts, to achieve a greater expressivity and viscerality in his music. This approach has partly been inspired by his numerous past experiences in various Rock Bands and his deep interest in electronic music.
Sunyeong Pak (South Korea, 1986)
Sunyeong Pak is a composer and pianist whose work seeks highly refined sense of orchestration, imaginative process and interdisciplinarity. She completed her doctoral degree in music composition at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She holds composition degrees from DePaul Univeristy (MM) and Ewha Womans University (BM).Her works have been performed and/or commissioned by several ensembles in the Europe, United States and South Korea including Ensemble Court
Circuit, Meitar Ensemble, Ulysses Ensemble, Ensemble Multilatérale, Les Métaboles, ECCE Ensemble, Mivos Quartet, Yarn/Wire, The Construction Site New Music Ensemble, The University of Michigan Percussion Ensemble and Illinois Modern Ensemble. Her works have been performed at numerous venues such as Académie Voix Nouvelles (Royaumont Fondation), June in Buffalo, ARCO (Marseille, France), Yarn/Wire Institute, Etching Festival (Auvillar, France) and have been supported by Ministère de la Culture, Royaumont Fondation in France, the Seoul Cultural Foundation and Arts Council Korea.
Mirco Ballabene (Italy, 1981)
Mirco Ballabene, from an early age, began the study of music playing piano and electric bass, to finally get to the double bass. In 2010 he graduated in classical double bass at the "G. Rossini" of Pesaro. In 2011 he released an album, "Vìreo", with Fabio Mina and Danilo Rinaldi, in collaboration with Markus Stockhausen, for the German label Aktivraum. In 2014 he deepened the study of improvisation techniques with Silvia Bolognesi. In February 2015, he released a second album,
"Triologos - Tracce di canti", with Paolo Cerboni Bajardi and Bruno Cerboni Bajardi, for Slam Productions, a prestigious English label founded by George Haslam, a disc that will also be presented in the program "Piazza Verdi" on RadioRaiTre, one of the most important national broadcast.
Also in 2015 he took part in the "Anthony Braxton's Sonic Genome" project at Torino Jazz Festival, an eight-hour musical performance led by Braxton himself and his collaborators (Taylor Ho Bynum, James Fei, Nate Wooley and Mary Halvorson among others), and he begins the Permanent Music Research Laboratory with Stefano Battaglia at the Siena Jazz Foundation, which ends two years later with the recording of an album with the same pianist and Massimiliano Furia on drums. In September, he released the album "Strade", with Giovanni Ferri on alto sax and Mirco Bindelli on drums, again for SLAM Productions.
In 2017 he participated in the project of the Fonterossa Orchestra, conducted by Silvia Bolognesi, ensemble with whom he performed at Fonterossa Day in the context of Pisa Jazz. In the meantime, he began to collaborate with the association Urbino Jazz Club and with Lorenzo Binotti he organized the Laboratory of Improvisation and Experimental Music (LIMS), in which he conducts improvisation and Conduction workshops.
In February 2019, he took part in the International Creative Residences, an international creative music circuit that led him to direct an ensemble of twelve musicians at the Copenhagen Rhythm Music Conservatory with a composition written with Lorenzo Binotti.
In May 2019, he publishes in his own name an album in trio with Stefano Battaglia at the piano and Massimiliano Furia at the drums, Oltranza Oltraggio - La beltà, a work that welcomes the very favorable opinions of specialized critics.
Meanwhile he plays with Lorenzo Binotti in the duo Pvar, an improvised double bass and electronic music duo, with whom he performs in various venues across the country, including MACRO, the most important Rome museum of contemporary art, and with Binotti himself at the piano, Massimiliano Furia on drums and Piero Bittolo Bon on saxophones.
He leads Right To Party quartet, a project of his own compositions that attempts to blend the academic composition of the twentieth century with improvisation.
The first Right to party album was released on 2022 for the label Niafunken. For the same album, in the early 2023 he will release his first solo album at the double bass. He studied composition with Marco Momi.
Partially Active Participants
Xiaofeng Jiang (China, 1997)
Xiaofeng Jiang (b. 1997) is a Chinese composer currently based in Boston. Many of her compositions are inspired by visual arts, including paintings, sculptures, architecture, and videos. As a sound creator, she regards the borders of various visual arts, which limit objects in a particular frame, as a window into the world of musical sounds, leading to a bigger and more imaginative world composed in the time-space dimension.
Yui-Ka Zheng (Hong Kong, 1999)
ZHENG Yui-ka was born in Hong Kong. She is currently studying Composition and Electronic Music at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, under the teaching of Dr. Cheung Pui-shan and Ms LI Kar Yee. Her major works include Contrary for String Quartet, Tract for mixed ensemble and Lo Ting for Guanzi and live electronic.
Her musical focus includes exploring distinctive functions and varied textures of blank spaces within music and their incorporation with musical sounds. She also investigates her native cultural essence and interprets it into her personalized language. Jiang’s compositions have been performed in several countries, including China, the United States, and Israel. She has gained experience participating in music festivals, including the Bowdoin International Music Festival and CEME 2023 Festival, where she had the opportunity to take lessons with composers Chaya Czernowin, Yair Klartag, and Andreia Pinto Correia.
For her composition studies, Jiang received her Bachelor's degree at the Central Conservatory of Music in China and her Master's degree at the New England Conservatory of Music in the US. She is currently a doctoral student in composition at NEC under the supervision of Michael Gandolfi and Bert Van Herck.
Giulio Piras (Italy, 1996)
Giulio Piras is an Italian composer and pianist, lives in Tuscany in the province of Arezzo and in July 2022 he obtained the Master of Arts in Music Composition at the Rinaldo Franci Conservatory in Siena. His approach to composition is multifaceted, in fact, he simultaneously dedicates himself to different strands of production all connected to each other and influenced by each other: "When I compose a piece I always look for a network that can connect the different aspects of my compositional
styles".
His collaborations span several genres: Contemporary/Classical, Soundtrack for movies and videogames, and Theater. We can find compositions for solo instrument, ensemble and orchestra, performed during the concert seasons of the Siena Conservatory, the Cantiere Internazionale d'Arte of Montepulciano and the CaMu "Casa della Musica di Arezzo"; these pieces have been awarded scholarships and mentions, such as the 2022 Agostino Agazzari Scholarship; he also participated at the recording project “New Antiquities for Guitar” by Raffaello Ravasio and published by EMA Vinci L&C records. Within the Soundtrack for Films & Games he collaborated with the creator Michele Poggi aka Sabaku no Maiku and he’s currently composer for the indie team "Guiding Feather" for the development of the videogame “Tale of Balance”. Within the music for the theater he has composed a series of melologue for reciting voice and ensemble including "Carone", on the theatrical text by Francesco M. Pagano, which obtained the honorable mention at the F. M. Pagano International Composition Competition 2022. At the moment Giulio Piras is teaching music theory and piano at music schools in the province of Florence and is starting a recording project at EMA Vinci with fellow double bass player Sofia Bianchi.
PERFORMANCE
Fernando dos Santos (Brazil, 1993)
Giuseppe Cavone (Italy, 2002)
The saxophonist, educator, and researcher Fernando dos Santos (1993) is currently working on his Master in Music at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ, Brazil), in exchange at the “Música Contemporânea” Research Group at the Centro de Estudos de Sociologia e Estética Musical (GIMC-CESEM) of Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas of Universidade Nova de Lisboa (NOVA-FCSH) in Portugal. His research explores the contemporary music performance from
Giuseppe Cavone was born in Bari on April 17, 2002 and start to play sax at the age of 7 in the band of Modugno.
From 2013 he began his studies at the "Niccolò Piccinni" Conservatory of Music in Bari with Roberto Micarelli and in 2020/22 he followed the lessons of 'New repertoires' with Fabio Sammarco.He deepened his study with internationally renowned teachers such as Otis Murphy, Federico Mondelci, Massimo Mazzoni, Arno Bornkamp, Jacopo Taddei, Jerome Laran, A-
20th to 21st century, focuses on the performance of Ibero-American contemporary music ensembles, and collaboration with composers. As a performer, he is invited to premiere pieces in collaboration with Brazilian and international composers. He participated in concerts of the “XXIX Panaroma de Música Brasileira Atual” (Rio de Janeiro), “Série de Concertos do studio PANaroma com PUTS” (São Paulo), “Festival Música Estranha” (São Paulo), and others. He has also a member founder of In ensemble and has been contributing with Ateliê Contemporâneo (São Paulo) and UFRJ sax ensemble (Rio de Janeiro) for interpretations (also with electronic) of 20th- and 21st-centuries repertoire.
lex Troya, Silvio Rossomando, Michele Paolino and Mario Marzi.
In 2021 he joined in the ANBIMA National Youth Band as a tenor sax player.
He took part and won the "Città di Maruggio" and "UrtiContest" competitions and, in August 2022, he was 'best classified' in the first edition of the "Il Saxofono Italiano" competition held in Sogliano Cavour as part of the 17 ° Locomotive Jazz Festival "Classic Area".
Denise Tamburi (Italy, 1995)
In 2019, she obtained a bachelor degree at the Francesco Morlacchi Conservatory of Perugia and in 2021, she finished a two-year Master in modern and contemporary music under the supervision of Maestro Claudia Giottoli.
She participated in several Masterclasses with renowned flautists: James and Jeanne Galway, Stefano Parrino, Marcello Gatti and Manuel Granatiero: In 2018 and 2019, she collaborated with “Voiceweek”
in Perugia and with the “Festival dei Due Mondi” in Spoleto.
She collaborated with Brigitta Muntendorf during the Segnali Festival in 2018 and actively participated in the “Bottega musicale contemporanea” held by Maestro Marco Momi.
In 2018 and in 2019 she participated in Masterclasses held by MDI Ensemble in Perugia (in 2019) and Loveno (in 2021) and in the “Traiettorie” festival in Parma (in 2021).
In the same two years, she worked as a dancer and singer in Ferrara with the theatrical company Urochs under the guidance of Marta Raviglia, with whom she studied jazz singing and began to experiment with the relationship between voice and movement.
Musician and Performer is currently attending Advanced Master in contemporary Music under the guidance of the ICTUS and SPECTRA ensemble at the Ghent Conservatory with the project "In balance between Sound and Movement". His research focuses on the relationship and connection between music, dance and the theatrical aspect. Interested in Brazilian culture, she has recently been working with the discipline of Capoeira and Brazilian percussion.