INTERNATIONAL ilSUONO CONTEMPORARY MUSIC WEEK
An Annual Summer Music Academy in Italy
PARTICIPANTS 2024
COMPOSITION
Fully Active Participants
-Category A: Mixed Media-
Arnau Gran i Romero (Spain, 2001)
Arnau Gran i Romero was born in Catalonia in 2001. He began his studies at the Conservatory of Girona where he learned piano, cello and harpsichord. In 2018, he met the Spanish composer José Manuel López López who introduced him to the world of contemporary creation and with whom he began his composition studies in 2019 at the CRR de Paris. In 2020, he obtains the DEM of composition of the CRR with the congratulations of the jury and he joins the University of Paris VIII where he passes the
degree in musicology with the specialization in computer assisted composition with Alain Bonardi and Anne Sèdes. During this degree, Gran i Romero studies a wide range of electroacoustic music subjects such as ambisonic spatialization, micro-montage and convolution. He is also introduced to live electronics by creating mixed works for musicians of the Cairn Ensemble and the Sinkro Ensemble. In 2022, he also enrolls at Paris VIII, in a master's degree in music theory and practice, also specialized in electroacoustic music. During his first year of master, he bases his research on the understanding of the instrumental gesture as a tool for a more natural manipulation of electroacoustic music. The analysis of the links between independent (the parameter controlled by the musician) and dependent variables of the instrumental gesture (those parameters that naturally respond to the independent parameter), the application of these links to electronic sounds, and the modeling of the gesture in non-instrumental sounds are some of the points on which he bases his research. That same year, he joins the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSMDP) in the composition classes of Gérard Pesson, and Luis Naón, Yan Maresz and Grégoire Lorieux for the new technologies courses. In 2023, he has been awarded by the Petrichor Records label in the category "composers under the age of 21" for his piece "Sounds from an electric nature". During these years, he has composed for a wide variety of ensembles such as the Ensemble Intercontemporain, l'Itinéraire, Cairn, TM+, Sinkro, MG21, KDM, ...
Vadim Genin (Russia, 1993)
Vadim D. Genin, born in 1993, is a composer, graduate of the Saratov State Conservatoire (Academy) (Saratov, Russia, 2022). He holds a PhD degree in Physics and Mathematics (2022) and is a member of the Composers Union of Russia (2022). His compositions have been performed by the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, MolOt-Ensemble, Studio for New Music, Dmitry Pokrovsky Ensemble, Festino chamber choir, conductor Fyodor Lednev, etc.
He has had individual lessons with Klaus Lang (Austria), Januibe Tejera (Brazil, France), Deqing Wen (China, Switzerland), Mark Andre, Sergey Nevsky, Sarah Nemtsov, Oliver Schneller (Germany), Michael Pizaro (USA), Blais Ubaldini (Switzerland), Olga Bochikhina, Vladimir Gorlinsky, Nikolai Popov, Vladimir Rannev, Alexei Sysoev, Alexander Khubeev, Nikolai Khrust (Russia), etc.
Davide Pentassuglia (Italy, 1999)
Davide Pentassuglia was bornin Locorotondo (Ba, Italy) on 1999. He studied composition at the Conservatory of Monopoli with Riccardo Panfiliand then with Zeno Baldi. Currently he is finishing his Bachelor at the Conservatory of Mantova with Zeno Baldi and Maurizio Azzan. He attended masterclasses with Clara Iannotta, Daniele Ghisi and Mauro Lanza. His works have been performed by Divertimento Ensemble and L'Arsenale Ensemble. His interests currently concern the interaction
between acoustic instruments, objects and transducers. With the aim of finding and hybrid borderline sound between electronic and instrumental music.
Yulin Yan (China, 1998)
Yulin Yan, born in 1998, is a composer of instrumental and electroacoustic music. Her works are characterized by nuanced timbre and tension, emphasizing the ambiguity of the perception of reality and fantasy. Besides the sound layer, the intensity of her works is often created by reference to extra-musical content, including literature, theatrical elements, olfactory art as well as social issues.
Yan's music have been programmed on vari
-ous occasions including live@CIRMMT, Code d'accès, and Collectif Radiance in Canada, as well as Novalis Festival (Croatia), Roadrunner Academy (Netherlands), Thailand International Composition Festival (Thailand), and Futurology Kiosk Project (Germany). She was also selected in 2020 Barcelona International Composition Course and is the Composer-in-Residence of McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble in 2022/23. Besides, she collaborated with Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, New Zealand String Quartet, conductor Gregor A. Mayrhofer, Lorraine Vaillancourt, etc.
Yulin Yan won prizes including the second prize of New Music Generation 2021, the third prize of 2020 Sun River Prize, and the first prize of 2019 SCCM Cup Composition Competition. She is also the recipient of Schulich Grad Scholarship, National Scholarship (China), and Sichuan Outstanding Graduate. She holds a bachelor degree from Sichuan Conservatory of Music (China) where she studied composition with Xiaozhong Yang. She is currently pursuing her doctorate degree at McGill University Schulich School of Music (Canada) with Philippe Leroux, where she also obtained her master’s degree.
Chul Lee (South Korea, 1984)
Chul Lee started his carrer in 18years old as a guitar player for the high school rock band “Rockist”. At that time, he liked alternative and punk rock music such as Nirvana, Linkin Park, Rage Against the Machine, Deep Purple etc.. Since he had enrolled the university for the major of composition, he had learned deeply not only the classical music theory and history, but also the contemporary music. He actually was in shock at the very first time to listen the music 'Threnody to the Victims of Hirosima'
by Krzysztof Penderecki, while he participated in the entrance interview for the entrance examination of the university. He went to Switzerland for his contemporary composition studies and focused more on studying acoustic instrumental music with Prof. Isabel Mundry. After graduation of the master degree in Zurich, he moved to Berlin and learned DAW such as a Logic pro X&Abletone and simultaneously worked pop music as a composer shortly with a german musician Johannes Wirth and the film composer producer Micki Meuser, who is 1st chairman of DEFKOM, German Film Composers’s Union.
His father was a computer and semiconductor engineer and professor. With his personal wide music experience and environmental influence by his father, he has developed his music on PhD course under Prof. Jongwoo Yim, whose major is the electroacoustic music, at the Seoul National University.
Sohui Jeong (South Korea, 2003)
Sohui Jeong, born in 2003 in Icheon, South Korea, was drawn to the enchanting sounds of the world, which sparked her interest in composition. She began her studies at Juilliard Pre-college in 2019 and is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in composition at Universität der Künste Berlin with Manolis Vlitakis and Tom Rojo Poller. Sohui is passionate about finding the delicate balance between musical tension and natural phenomena and finding the nucleus in music. Her works have been pre
-miered by various ensembles across multiple contemporary music scenes. Sohui actively participates in composition masterclasses, festivals, and workshops, including Donaueschingen Next Generation, Impuls Gratz, Darmstädter Ferienkurse, CEME Festival, Barcelona Modern Ensemble Composition course with Ensemble Multilaterale, ICCS Young Talent with Ensemble Modern, Mixtur Barcelona, Zagreb Music Biennale with Klangforum Wien, and Luxembourg Composition Academy with United Instruments of Lucilin.
-CATEGORY B: ACOUSTIC-
Lanqing Ding (China, 1990)
Arda Bayram (Turkey, 2001)
Lanqing Ding is a composer based in Paris. After graduating from the Shanghai Conservatory, she entered the ircam cursus and then the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Paris. Lanqing's music is strongly linked to vocal, acoustic and electronic music genres. Her music is generally inspired by both concreteand abstract sounds in nature and literature. Her work expresses her perception of the world and her desire for introspection, as well as her sensitive and
Arda Bayram (b.2001, Turkey) is a composer. His works are motivated to explore dramatic potentials of sound and silence and experiential, perceptual and cultural roots that these dramatic potentials rest on.
Recently, his works are concerned with depoliticization of the artist, demystification of the art and atomization of the end.His musics are performed by renowned musicians and ensembles mostly in Europe such as Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, Susanne Peters, Nina Janssen-
subtle way of creating sound.
She has worked with some orchestras and ensembles such as Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra (Festival presence of Radio France and Manifest of Ircam), Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Modern, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart etc. She has also worked with conductors Peter Rundel, Pedro Amaral, Marzena Diakun, Leo Margue, Guoyong Zhang, Chengjie Zhang, Liang Zhang etc.
Her artistic training began with piano, classical dance and choral singing at age five. She started composing at the age of fifteen. She then followed the teachers Guohui Ye, Stefano Gervasoni, Yan Maresz, Luis Noan, Grégoire Lorieux, Tristan Murail, Hèctor Parra, and Elmar Lampson for composition and electronic music. During this time, she also participated in master classes with: Franck Bedrossian, Philippe Hurel, Mauro Lanza, Noriko Baba, Philippe Manoury, Luca Francesconi, Martin Matalon, Wolfgang Rihm, Dieter Ammann, Kaija Saariaho etc. She has received grants from the Meyer Foundation, Fondation de France and the China Scholarship Council.
Liyi Lu (China, 1996)
Lu Liyi, Master degree of composition graduated from Shanghai Conservatory of
Music. she is a composer and soloist residing in Shanghai, China.
She started to learn instrumental playing at her early age and admitted to Shanghai Conservatory of Music Attached Middle School at the age of 10 majored in pipa performance, she has got high remark on study in Middle school and won the Conservatory scholarships and Shanghai municipality Scholarship for many times.
She started to learn composition at high school and completed her bachelor degree majored in both composition and pipa performance at Shanghai Conservatory of Music and master degree majored in composition, she also minored in Harp and Guqin in College time.
She have won awards in both composition, instrumental performance and many types of scholarships for more than 15 times, such as: first prize of Serbia Smederevo composition competition; second prize of Italy ’Don Vincenzo Vitti’ composition competition; Excellence Award of the 7th Rivers Awards international composition competition; first prize of JSFest 2022 Composition Competition; gold award of the ‘QingYue’ International Pipa Competition; gold award of the Singapore international instrumental competition, etc. she have been cooperated with many orchestras and conductors, such as Shanghai Opera Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, Shanghai chamber orchestra not only as a composer but also as a soloist.
Deinzer, Peyee Chen, Elena Gabrielli, Schallfeld Ensemble, zone experimentale basel, MotoContrario Ensemble, Reverberation Percussion trio and Ensemble Qualia in festivals, academies and concerts such as Impuls festival 2023, International Young Composers Academy Ticino, Balkan Composers Competition 2021, Istanbul Young Composer’s Festival 2022.
He had the opportunity to attend individual lessons with remarkable composers such as Clara Iannotta, Lisa Streich, Malin Bång, Dmitri Kourlandski and Pierluigi Billone.
Iason Maroulis (Greece, 1999)
Iason Maroulis is a Greek composer, interested in the musical representation of the sensory and emotional aspect of concepts, as understood empirically. His work relies on the understanding and uncovering of the abilities of instruments, achieved through a personal exploration of them, as well as through collaboration with performers. This way of working allows the development of a personal way of writing for each instrument, which helps in the authentic representation of the subject of
each of his works.
After finishing, with First-Class, his undergraduate studies in Composition at the Royal Academy of Music, London, under the tuition of Rubens Askenar, he moved to Graz, Austria, to start a master’s degree in Composition at the Kunstuniversität Graz, under the tuition of Clemens Gadenstätter. He has attended lessons and masterclasses with prestigious composers such as Pierluigi Billone, Alberto Posadas, Franck Bedrossian and Ramon Lazkano, among others. He has collaborated with ensembles such as Barcelona Modern Ensemble, .abeceda new music ensemble and MotoContrario ensemble, and with individual performers such as the guitarist Dimitrios Soukaras, the baritone Harald H. Hein, the flutist Aleksandra Škrilec and the double bassist George Kokkinaris among others. Iason’s studies have been supported by awards such as the Athena Scholarship and an Entrance Scholarship from the Royal Academy of Music.
Filippo Lepre (Italy, 1995)
Filippo took his first steps as a trumpeter, getting a classical trumpet degree in 2015 in the G. Verdi Conservatory of Milan, but at the same time he began to study composition and continued as a composer, getting his Bachelor Degree in 2021, always in Milan. A brief period of studying lyric singing (3 years) gave him a clear perception of the problematic issue of writing for voice today, while the interest in the Jazz music as trumpeter gave him a
knowledge of extended harmony.
He is currently attending the composition Master at G. Verdi Conservatory in the class of Gabriele Manca, but at the same time he is taking part to a lot of professional experience, as IEMA 2021, Divertimento Ensemble workshop on prepared piano 2022, Rondò 2022, Rondò 2023, Rondò 2024 (upcoming) reMusik.org 2022, Novalis Concept Festival 2022, Mixtur Festival 2022, INT-ACT Festival and TMAO 2022 Prize, DYCE 2022, II prize-chamber music of New Music Generation competition 2022, Divertimento Ensemble workshop on percussion 2023, June in Buffalo 2023, Festival del Melologo di Como, Festival 5 Giornate di Milano, Time of Music Viitasaari Festival 2023, Stockholm Chamber Brass Academy Composition Course (upcoming 2024), Salvatore Sciarrino Composition Masterclass with mdi ensemble (12/2021), Barcelona Modern Ensemble 2021, Workshop with Francesco Dillon (2021), with Michele Marco Rossi (2022), album release commissioned by with Daniel Kientzy (2022), album release with Edizioni Sconfinarte (2023), Egidio Carella composition Prize (2021), Giuseppe Cantone I prize (2021) and a lot of masterclasses held by Francesco Filidei, Liza Lim, Oscar Bianchi, Dmitri Kourliandski, Francesca Verunelli, Unsuk Chin, Marco Stroppa, Klaus Lang, Alberto Posadas, George Benjamin, Vladimir Tarnopolski, David Nunez and many others.
His music has been performed in Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Usa, Russia, Finland, Croatia, Netherlands and Thailand by IEMA Ensemble, Divertimento Ensemble, Riot Ensemble, The [Switch~ Ensemble], Barcelona Modern Ensemble, Taceti Ensemble, Synchronos Ensemble, Vacuum Quartet, Glass Clouds Ensemble, Melonta Ensemble, AltreVoci Ensemble, Daniel Kientzy, Francesco Dillon, Maria Grazia Bellocchio, Elio Marchesini and many others.
Next projects include a new chamber brass piece for the Stockholm Chamber Brass Academy and a new solo guitar piece for Elena Casoli.
Love Carbin (Sweden, 2002)
Love Carbin is a composer born and raised 2002 in the north of Sweden. His music has been played in Sweden as well as internationally. He is currently pursuing composition studies in Gothenburg, Sweden. His music approaches the extremes of silence and loudness, of density andsparsity. He takes inspiration from poetry, visual art, and philosophy – arts which often leave traces woven in to his compositions. The music is volatile, shifting between fragile stillness and violent erupti-
ons, which combine to create his poetic sound worlds. His work proposes an intense listening experience, and the embodied practice of perception is an important part of his work.
His music has been played by ensembles such as ensemble hand werk, ensemble mosaik, Curious Chamber Players, Dalasinfoniettan, Gothenburg Wind Orchestra, Uppsala Kammarsolister and Umeå Musiksällskap. He has participated in the Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Impuls festival as well as Kalvfestivalen. He is currently studying as an undergraduate student with Malin Bång and Esaias Järnegard at the Academy of Music and Drama in Gothenburg.
In addition to his work as a composer, he is also a music critic writing for Nutida Musik, a Swedish journal about contemporary music.
Some musicians and performing organizations she has worked with include the Hub New Music, ZHENG string quartet, Eighth Blackbird’s member, Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, NEC Philharmonia Orchestra, NEC Wind Ensemble, Guangzhou Zhuying Symphony Orchestra.
For composition studies, Yao received her Bachelor’s degree at the Xinghai Conservatory of Music in China, Master's degree at the New England Conservatory. Currently, she is a DMA student in composition at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music under the supervision of Mara Helmuth.
Partially Active Participants
Emil Nilsson (Sweden, 1995)
Emil Nilsson is a composer working with acoustic chamber music.
Through experimental work methods, he explores the liminal with an emphasis on repetition, alteration and disintegration. He is interested in the speculative and the cross section between the rational and the irrational, between construction and deconstruction. In 2022 he participated in the academy of Kalv festival, resulting in a premiere of one of his pieces the following year by Swedish ensemble Gageego.
Yi Yao (China, 1997)
Yi Yao (b. 1997) is a Chinese composer currently based in Cincinnati. Many of her compositions are dedicated to using music to express thoughts on our relationship with nature and society to the world, as well as using sound as a medium of understanding the world. Her compositional idiom is profoundly informed by her Chinese heritage which serves as a unique connecting thread between her and the listeners.Yao’s compositions have been performed in China and the United States.
Furthermore, his music has been performed by other renowned Swedish ensembles such as Norrbotten Neo and Curious Chamber Players. Since 2022 he runs ensemble hybrid as a platform for his music to be performed, as well as for curating other experimental music.
Nilsson has studied composition at the Academy of Music and Drama and art history at Uppsala University. During his studies, he received several scholarships from the Royal Academy of Music, Adlerbertska foundations among others. Beside his activities as a composer he is also a performer on clarinet.
Matteo Rigotti (Italy, 1980)
Eclectic musician, he composes, plays, teaches. He owes his training to Mariano Andreolli.
His career has always developed through two channels, that of concertism and that of composition, inseparable from each other.Although participation in national and international competitions for both execution and composition has always brought excellent results, the idea of competition has never been primary in
his musical career. The very conception that in such a subjective art a sort of ranking could exist is completely opposite to his conception of music, essentially understood as a state of being.
His work is characterized by the interdisciplinarity of the different expressions of art and aspires to seek and find through his own art the common synthesis between the various worlds of contemporaneity.
He took the certificate in guitar at the Conservatory of Trento and then he received the Degree in Classical Guitar with a specialization in Chamber Music with full marks at the same conservatory.
Meeting Nadir Vassena was crucial, with whom first he studied at the Master of Advanced Studies in Music Composition at the Musikhochschule in Lugano in Switzerland and then at the Master of Arts in Music Composition and Theory. In that course he perfectioned also orchestration with Giovanni Verrando and electronic techniques with Sylviane Sapir and graduated with full marks.
His musical research uses the timbre as a fundamental element with the consequent interest in electronic music as one of the means to manipulate the sound. He attended seminars and masterclasses with important personalities of contemporary music as Johannes Schöllhorn, Harrison Birtwistle, Mike Svoboda, Jérôme Combier, Franck Bedrossian, Mats Scheidegger, Helmut Lachenmann, Dmitri Kourliandski, José María Sánchez-Verdú, Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, Betsy Jolas, Antonio Politano, Dieter Mack, Daniela Terranova, Stefano Gervasoni, Ivan Fedele, Michele Tadini, Errollyn Wallen, Matteo Cesari, Tristan Murail, Michele Marco Rossi, Marco Momi.
His music is performed in Italy and abroad in the course of Festivals as Le strade del Suono Contemporary Music Festival, XVIII World Saxophone Congress, Concerti d'Autunno Pesaro, LuganoMusica, San Vito Musica Contemporanea Festival, I Concerti del Conservatorio di Milano, Universität der Künste Berlin, Festival Melologo Bellagio Como 2023, Nak Festival Pamplona, Festival Contrasti, XVI Musikagileak Circuito de Musica Contemporanea, Norval Fondation during World New Music Days in South Africa.
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.
In the last few years he studied composition with Marco Momi and he participated in various masterclasses by Pierluigi Billone, Zeno Baldi, Marco Stroppa, Francesca Verunelli, Carmine Emanuele Cella and Sivan Eldar.