Time of Music Festival offers in the summer 2015 several unique opportunities to study contemporary music with the world’s topmost composers, pedagogues and musicians. We welcome all interested music students and young professionals, both composers and musicians to deepen their knowledge of the classics of contemporary music and enhance their skills in composition, ensemble playing and improvisation
Ensemble course with Ensemble Modern (DE). At the course the ensemble prepares and performs Theseus Game by Sir Harrison Birtwistle, guest composer of Time of Music and one of the great names in European contemporary music. Theseus Game is composed for 30 musicians and 2 conductors, and it was premiered by Ensemble Modern in 2003 in Ruhrtriennale. The work is one of the best known pieces of Birtwistle’s later period and not yet heard in Finland. Theseus Game will be performed by orchestra that consists of both course attendees and players of Ensemble Modern. The composer, who celebrates his 80th birthday in 2014, is present at the festival and in the performance. In addition the course attendees will take part in the world premiere performance of Time of Music’s commission from Lauri Supponen. Musicians and student playing following instruments are welcome to apply for the course: fl, ob, clar, bn, hn, tr, trb, tb, pf, perc, vl, vla, vlc. The course consists of ensemble playing and private lessons from the musicians of Ensemble Modern.
Ensemble Modern, founded in 1980 and based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, is internationally considered one of the best ensembles of contemporary music. The ensemble visited Finland in 1987 Helsinki Biennale.
Course for percussionist, teacher Steven Schick. Schick is one of the most distinguished percussionists and pedagogues of our time. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego. During his 40-years career he has commissioned and premiered over 150 new works. Schick is founder and Artistic Director of the percussion group “red fish blue fish”. Currently he is Music Director of the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus and Artistic Director of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. He is a popular conductor and recently worked with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Nova Chamber Ensemble and the Asko/Schönberg Ensemble. Schick will be music director of the 2015 Ojai Festival. The course will prepare and perform the minimalist masterpiece, Steve Reich’s “Drumming” and percussion ritual “For O, for O, The Hobby-Horse is Forgot” by Sir Harrison Birtwistle.
Composer course, teacher Brian Ferneyhough. Ferneyhough is widely recognized as one of today’s foremost living composers and pedagogues, with whom many of our contemporary composers have studied. Born in England, he lives in the US and holds the William H. Bonsall Professorship of composition in Stanford University. He has been associated with the most prestigious teaching institutions and international summer schools for contemporary music such as Darmstadt, Fondation Royaumont, Cambridge and Harvard. The widely performed and awarded composer is known for the complex works that challenge both the interpreter and the listener. Ferneyhough has visited Time of Music Festival in 1993. Composer course consists of private and open lectures. Quartet Quatuor Diotima and Ensembles Looptail and Nikel are available for performances of the works the accepted students will be working on at the course. Visits of Ferneyhough and above mentioned ensembles are part of EU funded Ulysses Network project.
Improvisation course, teacher George E. Lewis. Lewis is the Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music at Columbia University. The recipient of a 2002 MacArthur Fellowship, a 1999 Alpert Award in the Arts, a 2011 United States Artists Walker Fellowship, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Lewis studied composition with Muhal Richard Abrams at the AACM School of Music, and trombone with Dean Hey. A member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1971, Lewis’s work in electronic and computer music, computer-based multimedia installations, text-sound works, and notated and improvisative forms is documented on more than 140 recordings. Lewis has been honored with the 2012 SEAMUS Award from the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States, and his widely acclaimed book, A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (University of Chicago Press, 2008) is a recipient of the American Book Award and the American Musicological Society’s Music in American Culture Award. George E. Lewis will be giving lectures also at the composition course.
Guest composer Sir Harrison Birtwistle
The 80-year-old composer is no doubt one of the most distinguished living composers in the world. He is best known for his large scale operas played in England and abroad, for example in Salzburg and Holland Festivals. His music has been interpreted by Pierre Boulez and Daniel Barenboim among others, and he has received several prizes, of which most noteworthy are the Grawemayer Award and Ernst von Siemens Music Prize.
Archaic rituals and complex labyrinth-like structures are characteristic features in his original musical language. The composer will be in Time of Music for rehearsals and performances of his pieces as well as discussions open to public.
Prizes:
Course fee is 250 €. The fee includes participation to one course, free public lectures and discussions held by Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Brian Ferneyhough, Steven Schick and George Lewis, as well as free entrance to all festival concerts. Those interested in participating two different courses can do so for fee of 330 €. There is a possibility for a dormitory accommodation in double rooms for 150 € / 7 nights.
The courses take also passive students. With the fee of 100 € passive students can listen to all courses excluding private lessons. Passive student fee doesn’t include entrances to festival concerts.
Application procedure and more information:
Application for the courses begins on January 20th 2015, and is realized through a web form that will be found at Time of Music website. Application must include CV and other attachments mentioned for each course. Deadline for applications is February 28th 2015 for composers and March 10th for musicians. More information from Artistic Director Johan Tallgren, johan.tallgren(at)musiikinaika.org.
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