News & Updates
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.
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.
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.