Experts
Johannes Knapp
Curator, musicologist, cellist. Artistic and executive director of Collegium Novum Zürich. Knapp studied cello (with Ulrich Voss) and music management at the Saarland University, philosophy and musicology at the Goethe University Frankfurt.
He led the Schweizerischer Tonkünstlerverein, an association of professional musicians including composers, improvisational musicians, musicologists, music directors, etc. The organization gives considerable attention to contemporary music. Knapp is now the managing director of Concours Nicati, a competition aimed at revealing, promoting and supporting young musicians fond of contemporary music. He works with major musical institutions such as Salzburg Biennale, Pierre Boulez Saal, Festival de Lucerne.
Sergej Tchirkov
Accordionist, bayan player, lecturer, curator. He studied accordion with prof. Alexander Dmitryev at the Saint Petersburg State Conservatory. During his conservatory years he received a scholarship to the European Centre of Arts Hellerau.
Most of Sergej Tchirkov's repertoire consists of contemporary music pieces. The musician has given over two hundred world premieres. Sergej Tchirkov collaborated with State Academic Symphony Orchestra Evgeny Svetlanov, Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, Bavarian Radio Simphony Orchestra, Ensemble für Neue Musik Zürich, Collegium Novum Zürich, Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin, Ensemble United Berlin. Now he is a soloist of the Studio for New Music Ensemble.
In 2011-2014 Sergej Tchirkov was a professor at the International Young Composers Academy in Tchaikovsky-city. He also gave lectures at the University of Gothenburg, Norwegian Academy of Music, Zürich University of Arts, Conservatory of Geneva. Nowadays he teaches at the Department of Contemporary Music of Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory.
Sergej Tchirkov founded a website about contemporary Swiss composers. In 2014 he curated an international project Alpenfest. A year later the project was followed by a musical performance Splendor of Colors / Interferences. In 2021 Sergej Tchirkov curated an online project P2P ON AIR which involved Swiss composers creating pieces together with the Studio for New Music Ensemble musicians.
Guests and interviewers
Issue 1
Serge Vuille
Curator, percussionist and composer active on the contemporary and experimental music scene.
He developed a vision of today's music that is open and engaged through the Kammer Klang series and the percussion and electronics ensemble We Spoke, of which he was artistic director for five and ten years respectively. In April 2018, he took over the artistic direction of the Ensemble Contrechamps in Geneva.
As a musician, he plays with the London Sinfonietta, Ictus Ensemble, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Martin Creed Band, as well as solo at the Huddersfield HCMF, London LCMF, SMC Lausanne, Musikpodium Zürich and Druskomanija Vilnius festivals. He regularly collaborates with composers, performers and artists to create new works and composes concert music as well as multimedia works performed in Switzerland, Europe and America.
Serge taught experimental music and coached the percussion ensemble at the Royal College of Music in London until 2019 and he regularly gives masterclasses and workshops in music and performing arts colleges.
Photo © Younès Klouche
Christina Agaronyan
Musicologist, music journalist, curator. Centre of Music Projects manager at the HSE University. Co-founder and editor of Stravinsky.online website. Stravinsky's Dialogues: Switzerland project curator.
Christina Agaronyan studied history and theory of music at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory with associate professor R. Nasonov. She won multiple all-Russian and international competitions. She organized many concerts and forums including international projects of the Students Scientific and Artistic Society of the Moscow conservatory.
Articles of Christina Agaronyan are published in such magazines as Scientific Bulletin of the Moscow Conservatory, Russian Musician, Stravinsky.online. Her scientific papers are featured in various collections of essays published by the Moscow conservatory and the State Institute for Art Studies. She participates regularly in international scientific conferences related to theory and history of music (in Moscow, Kazan and other Russian cities). She is currently a postgraduate student at the Moscow Conservatory and is writing a PhD thesis on experimental music in the USA of the second half of the 20th century.
Issue 2
Violist, singer, composer, performer, improviser, visual artist. With her inter-media compositions and room-scores with Son-Icons she offers compositional settings, where intercultural and artistic resources of the musicians and artists can be integrated, flourish and constantly evolve. Hug is constantly breaking new ground with her instrument and has reinvented the viola. Her specialty is also a blend of viola and vocals using high falsetto, vibrating glottal sounds, multiphonics, and language like articulation. Hug seeks to develop instrumental and vocal techniques to their fullest extent, which has resulted in an unmistakable and unique tonal language.
She has recorded an extensive discography amongst others with Elliott Sharp, Maggie Nicols, Lucas Niggli, several CDs with the Stellari String Quartet (Phil Wachsmann, Marcio Mattos & John Edwards, etc. including three solo CDs on international labels.
Having completed her studies in fine arts and classical music, she won divers awards such as “artist residences” in London, Paris, Berlin, Johannesburg, Shanghai, the international composer fellowship at the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, she was “artiste étoile” (star artist) at the world-renowned Lucerne Festival and nominated for the Classic:Next - Innovation Award 2019.
“Son-Icons” are the core of Hug’s artistic work and research. Son-Icons are music to be seen, hybrids of visual art and musical notation. Hug developed a composition method with Son-Icons for interdisciplinary and intercultural contexts. Her works and room-scores are played by international ensembles (Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, Ensemble SuperMusique Montréal, Via Nova Choir Munich, Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Dance Company FATC Johannesburg, etc.).
An important influence and inspiration was the long-standing participation in the London improvisers Orchestra. As a result, Hug developed open concepts and conducted the SPIO São Paulo Improvisers Orchestra, the KIO the Krakow Improvisers Orchestra etc.
In addition to exhibitions, she is fully active as a concert performer, soloist, composer and conductor of her own works at major festivals in Europa, North - und Latin America, Canada, South Africa, Russia and China (SWR Donaueschinger Musiktage, Berliner Festspiele, MaerzMusik, FIMAV Festival International Musique Actuelle Victoriaville, San Francisco International Arts Festival, Festival international musicà SESC São Paulo, Festival Infecting the City in Cape Town etc.)
Hug gives master classes in improvisation and “inter-media composition”. She was a teaching artist or visiting professor at McGill University Montreal, CNMAT of the University of California Berkeley, University of the Witswatersrand Johannesburg, the China Academy of Art Hangzhou, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, etc. She is the head of the international postgraduate studies Creation & Scenario in Music at the Zurich University of the Arts.
Photo © Alberto Venza
Alexandra Persheeva
PhD in art history, researcher, filmmaker, video artist. Head of the art history department at the Higher School of Economics Art and Design School.
Alexandra Persheeva was born in 1989 in Moscow. She graduated from the Moscow State University where she majored in semiotics and theory of art. In 2012 she got a master's degree in fine arts.
In 2018 she defended her PhD thesis Expressive Possibilities of Editing in Video Art. She is focused on researching contemporary screen arts. She gave lectures on the history of cinema and video art at the Faculty of Arts of Moscow State University. Since 2014 she has been teaching history and theory of art and design at the HSE Art and Design School. She’s a multiple winner of the Best Teacher award.
Books written by Alexandra Persheeva include Video Art. Editing the Viewer and The Age of Vermeer. Mysterious Genius of the Baroque and the Dawn of Modern Times.
In 2011 she was an assistant director of Alexander Proshkin’s film Redemption. In 2012 she directed I’m with you, an award-winning film at the Together International TV and Cinema Forum..
Issue 3
Pascal Viglino
Pascal Viglino studied classical and contemporary percussion, composition and musical theater at the conservatories of Geneva, London, Barcelona, Berlin and Bern. He has been an active member of the Verbier Festival Orchestra, the Orquestra do Algarve (Portugal), the Durban Philharmonic (South Africa), the Academia d'orquesta del Grand Teatre Liceu Opera (Barcelona), ensembles with which he has performed in more than forty countries.
He regularly performs with various orchestras and contemporary music ensembles (Bern Symphony Orchestra, Eklekto Geneva Percussion Ensemble, Camerata Variabile, Zurich Opera, Camerata Bern, Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, Kammerorchester Basel, Ensemble Contrechamps, Kammer Neuemusik Ensemble Berlin, Kammerorchester Bern, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Bergen Philharmonic (Norway), as well as with other music ensembles.
Pascal has been awarded various national prizes and scholarships and leaded various artistic projects for the Verbier Festival, Musikfestival Bern, Festival Hik et Nunk, the Pfingskonzerte of Ittingen, the Davos Festival. He is also a composer for various musical theatre projects.
In 2011, Pascal Viglino founded the company KLANGBOX and is its artistic director. In 2012-14 Klangbox received the Music Pro label and in 2019-21 received the Nestle Foundation for the Arts Grant.
During the Covid he founded the platform dans l'Jardin which got more than 1500 music performances in Switzerland in one year and helped financially around 130 musicians strongly hitted by the pandemic.
Pascal Viglino received the 2012 Cultural Recognition Prize for Music from the Canton of Berne. In 2015, he also received the Prize for Cultural Encouragement from the Canton of Valais.
Pascal Viglino was a visiting professor in the Music Theater department of the University of the Arts of Bern.
Photo © Héloïse Maret
Tatiana Yakovleva
Musicologist, teacher of the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music, music journalist, curator, lecturer. Co-founder of the Gnesin contemporary music week, a contemporary music festival of lectures, workshops and concerts. Since 2018 the project is active in organizing concerts and educational programs involving young musicians, tutors and composers.
Tatiana Yakovleva is a co-founder and editor of Stravinsky.online. Her articles are published in various magazines including Musical life, Independent Newspaper, The Bolshoi Theatre, Colta.ru, reMusik.org, etc. She gives lectures on contemporary music and musical theater in such projects as Composer reading sessions (Krasnoyarsk), Theater of Nations Atomic Cities (Zheleznogorsk, Seversk), International Festival of Contemporary Music Nauryz-21 (Kazakhstan), International Young Composers Academy in Tchaikovsky-city. She participated in numerous all-Russian and international scientific conferences.
Tatiana Yakovleva is currently writing a thesis on Georges Apergis, a contemporary French composer.
Issue 4
Uli Fussenegger
Uli Fussenegger was born in Austria in 1966, studied double bass with Franz Dunkler and Ludwig Streicher. After several years of freelance concert activity in the field of early music on original instruments (with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and the Concentus Musicus Wien, among others), Uli Fussenegger specialised in contemporary music and became a member of Klangforum Wien in 1987. Intensive long-term collaboration with composers such as Georges Aperghis, Beat Furrer, Bernhard Lang, Matthias Pintscher Chaya Czenowin and Alberto Posadas led to countless solo works for double bass, which Uli Fussenegger premiered.
In addition to his international concert activity as a double bass player, Uli Fussenegger works as a composer and improviser. His work has been documented on over 400 CD and DVD productions. He was also dramaturg of Klangforum Wien for over 20 years and has been curatorially active in various performative formats. This has led to intensive collaboration with director Christoph Marthaler, among others.
Uli Fussenegger was a lecturer at the Lucerne University of Music from 2009 to 2018, has taught at the Ensembleakademie Impuls Graz since 1999 and at the Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt since 2002. In addition, he has been instrumental coach at the lucerne academy since 2017.
Since 2018 Uli Fussenegger has been head and coordinator of contemporary music/sonic space basel at the Hochschule für Musik Basel/FHNW.
Miroslava Tyrina
Musical journalist and curator. Stravinsky.online editor. Domrist and mandolinist specializing in contemporary academic music. Geometry of sound soloist. Participant of the Pro Arte School of cultural journalism (2020).
Miroslava graduated from the Gnesins Russian Academy of Music in 2021. She has won numerous international competitions. She has curated 30+ contemporary music projects in the Museum of Moscow, Center for Drama and Directing, Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, Multimedia Art Museum Moscow, Art Center Moscow, Moscow Philharmonic Society, Mesto Festival in Smolensk.
Issue 5
Andreas Eduardo Frank
Composer, media artist, performer.
He studied at the Würzburg Music Academy and at the Electronic Studio of the Basel Music Academy.
His oeuvre is versatile and marked by close collaboration with other young musicians and artists on an international level. In his works, Andreas Eduardo Frank explores the interface of real and virtual, of music, performance, video and theatre. His pieces are usually preceded by an overarching poetic idea, which is then contextualized in the music in a manner that may range from comical to nihilistic. He enjoys playing with absurdity and humour, trying to sparkle with what does not shine in a virtuoso manner, building castles in the air with his music, without fear of tearing them down again, deriving from their debris a genuine notion of music which courageously flirts with other disciplines.
Close collaboration with performers and collaboration with other artists have led to numerous performances of his works in Europe, Asia and America. Since autumn 2018 Andreas joined Ensemble Lemniscate as artistic co-director alongside Ricardo Eizirik.
Andreas Eduardo Frank has won several awards for this work. He was a fellow of the Academy »Musiktheater heute« (2015-17), nominated for the interdisciplinary residency fellowship Gargonza Arts Award in 2016, selected for the MATA Festival 2018 in New York, won an award from »Protonwerk No. 6«, nominated for the scholarship Progetto Positano (2018) of the EVS Foundation in cooperation with Ensemble Mosaik, got a residency at the SWR Experimental studio for 2020 and won the 64. Composition Award of the City of Stuttgart.
Alexandra Lokteva
Stravinsky.online editor, Stravinsky's Dialogues: Switzerland project curator. Postgraduate student of the Moscow Conservatory, junior researcher at the Center for Contemporary Music of the Moscow Conservatory, Studio for New Music ensemble administrator. Curator of numerous seminars on contemporary music for culturologists and journalists. Curator of the first ever refresher courses on 20th century avant-garde music for music teachers in Russia. Moscow forum contemporary music festival manager.
Alexandra has organized numerous projects of the Students Scientific and Artistic Society of the Moscow conservatory (SSAS). A big project was dedicated to society’s 80th anniversary (“80 years of SSAS”). As a result, a collection of essays was published by the Moscow conservatory (“SSAS in the history of the Moscow conservatory”). Alexandra has also participated in several international conferences including the 35th General Assembly of the International Confederation of Electroacoustic Music CIME / ICEM.
Issue 6
Anja Wernicke
Anja Wernicke studied Cultural Studies and Aesthetic Practice at the University of Hildesheim and Médiation culturelle de l'Art at the Université de Provence in Marseille. In 2018 she completed the university course Curating in performing arts at the Paris Lodron University in Salzburg.
Since 2014, she has worked for the ZeitRäume Basel Festival in various roles: first as production manager, since 2018 as managing director, and since 2021 as co-director together with Bernhard Günther. Since 2016, she has been working in the research department of the Hochschule für Musik FHNW in Basel, where she is a lecturer in the field of curating and co-director of the advanced study course program CAS Curating Contemporary Music.
Zhanna Savitskaya
Stravinsky.online editor, lecturer of musical and theoretical disciplines at the Moscow State College of Musical Performance named after F. Chopin, scientific editor of the "Music" section of the Great Russian Encyclopedia, developer of educational modules and electronic educational resources.
Graduated from the Academic College of Music at the Tchaikovsky Moscow Conservatory, in 2021 — Tchaikovsky Moscow Conservatory (Faculty of Science and Composition, graduation work — "Principles of Musical Historiography by Sethus Calvisius").
Laureate of all-Russian competitions in the theory and history of music and composition, participant of international scientific conferences, laureate of performing competitions and festivals. Fellow of the Talent and Success Foundation, the RF President's Grants Fund.
Issue 7
Helena Winkelman
Composer, violinist. The artistic director of the Camerata Variabile Basel.
She was composer in residence at the Lockenhaus and Ernen festivals. In 2016 she received the Georg Fisher prize of her native town Schaffhausen and in 2017 the Swiss music award.
Her music was performed by the Arditti Quartet, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Asian Art Ensemble, Ensemble Phoenix, Ensemble Musikfabrik and soloists like Nicolas Altstaedt, Thomas and Patrick Demenga Hansheinz Schneeberger, Pekka Kuusiisto, Patricia Kopatchinskaya, Simon Höfele, Steamboat Switzerland and others.
As a charismatic violinist, Helena Winkelman establishes a very direct connection to her audience. Being a true aficionado of intimate chamber music settings, she and her group, the Camerata Variabile Basel have created their own concert series that often bridges music with social or philosophical themes.
After winning the Pro Musicis Award in 2001 she gave her debut at Weill recital hall, New York and Salle Cortot, Paris. She also performed at the Lucerne-, Gstaad- and Davos Music Festivals (Switzerland). For 25 years she is a participant of the legendary english IMS open chamber music festival.
Since 2017 she also is the first violinist of the London based Callino String Quartet.
Besides her teachers Roland Moser and Georg Friedrich Haas, her major musical influences were composers György Kurtag and George Benjamin, percussionist Pierre Favre, violinist Gidon Kremer and conductor Claudio Abbado with whom she worked in the Lucerne Festival Orchestra for 5 years.
For more see: www.helenawinkelman.ch
Alina Petrova
Multi-instrumentalist, composer, curator and producer of music and educational programs.
Founder of the ensemble of contemporary academic music Kymatic.
Since 2019, a member of the indie jazz group The Rig (Russian Improv Group) label NISHA. Performed with Insub Meta Orchestra (Switzerland). As a composer, she collaborated with the Gogol Center Theater and the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre. In 2019, she was selected to the Bang on A Can (NY, USA) residence and was supported by the American Academy ARTS LINK in 2020. As a sound artist, she interacted with such artists as DuZa, whose creative tandem was marked by the magazine “Interview” Germany.
Since 2021, he has been teaching an author's course on modern composing techniques at the Higher School of Economics.
Issue 8
Ricardo Eizirik
Ricardo Eizirik is a composer with an extended artistic production ranging from chamber music to installation and performance works. His work focuses on themes such as banality, the mechanization of society and the by-products of daily life (i.e. junk, trash, noise, etc). Ricardo Eizirik has received numerous grants and prizes and worked with ensembles and festivals such as Ensemble Mosaik, ensemble Recherche, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Talea Ensemble, Collegium Novum Zürich, Ensemble Adapter, Athelas Sinfonietta, Trio Catch, Internationale Ensemble Modern Akademie, Ensemble Talea, Jetpack Bellerive, Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik, ECLAT, Maerz Musik, KLANG, Archipel, KLANGWERKSTATT, MUSICA, Nordic Music Days among others. He took his Bachelor in Music Composition under Antonio C. B. Cunha at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. In 2012 he completed a Master in Composition under Isabel Mundry and in 2013 a Master in Transdiziplinarität, both at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste (CH). He is presently enrolled in a Doctoral program at the Kunst Univerität Graz (Graz – A)/ZHdK. He lives and works between Switzerland and Berlin (DE).
For more see: www.ricardoeizirik.com
Tamina Tedeeva
Conductor-choirmaster, performer of classical and modern music. Participant of projects of the "КоOPERAция" laboratory, "Архстояние" festival. Since 2019, she has been cooperating with the Stravinsky.online website (news department), she has been the curator of the "Concert Schedule" section.
Participant of the Second All-Russian Seminar on Music Journalism in the framework of the 16th International Festival of Contemporary Music "Moscow Forum".
Issue 9
Thomas Gartmann
Musicologist. Studies in Musicology, German Studies and History at the University of Zurich; Violin classes with Rudolf Bamert, Elemer Glanz and Daniel Zisman. Composition, Analysis and Counterpoint with Hans Ulrich Lehmann.
1988 Graduation (lic. phil.) with a thesis on historically informed performance
1994 Doctorate (Dr. phil.) with '... dass nichts an sich jemalsvollendet ist.' Untersuchungen zum Instrumentalschaffen von Luciano Berio
Assistant at the Institute of Musicology, University of Zurich, Classes on Cultural Management and Cultural Policy at the Universities of Applied Sciences, Zurich, Classes in the History of Music at the University of Berne and in Acoustics and Organology at the Conservatory of Berne and the Academy für School and Church Music Lucerne.
Head of the Music Department, and Deputy Director of Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. Scientific assistant for Research at the University of Music Basel. Visiting Professor for Research in the Research area Interpretation, Berne University of the Arts.
Head of Research at the Berne University of the Arts and of the Doctoral Program Studies in the Arts.
Alina Moiseeva
Student of the profile "Music journalism and editorial activities in the media" of the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory.
Since 2020 Alina has been the news editor on the Stravinsky.online website. Alina also is an author of publications in the "Musical Life", "Musical Seasons", "Musical Klondike", "Tribune of a Young Journalist" journals, the author of an interview on the Maskbook project website.
Participant of the conferences "Music Journalism in the Information Age" (October 15-16, 2019), "Art, Design and Contemporary Education" (May 14, 2019).
Issue 10
Annette Schmucki
Composer. She studied composition with Cornelius Schwehr and with Mathias Spahlinger in Freiburg, Germany. Her focus lays on 'music and language/speech tilt into each other'. Her work consists of composing, writing, performing.
Annette Schmucki has received numerous prices and grants for her artistic work. She gets comissioned to write for internationally renowned ensembles and festivals.
In 2021 she collaborated with Ensemble Ascolta Stuttgart, Ensemble Proton Bern, Ensemble Ictus Bruxelles, Ensemble Mosaik Berlin, Les Trombones de bâle Basel and other great instrumentalists.
Apart from her solitary work she has been collaborating with radio artist Reto Friedman since 2000 in the duo 'blablabor'. In 2010 she founded the sampler duo 'band' with Petra Ronner. And together with visual artist Maria Gasche she invents the lifes of the 'sieben schweinsschwestern'.
Annette Schmucki is member of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin. She works in an old factory in the Bernese Jura and on the outing.
Elizaveta Zgirskaya
Composer. She studied composition with Yuri Kasparov at Moscow conservatory. She is an author of instrumental and experimental music, interested in interaction of music with other arts: architecture, theater, painting. This interest is concentrated in her work 701 Project. This is a project about wooden architecture of the small town Tomsk, Siberia. Elizaveta explores the possibilities of connection music and architecture in audio- and visual pieces of art. Houses in this project can be an art objects, places for performances, inspiration for the piece or for video-art. The main idea is to convey the essence of the building via music.
Participated in several competitions: The V Myaskovsky International Competition of Young Composers — III prize (Moscow, 2018), The I Myaskovsky International Competition of Young Composers “Samal” — III prize (Astana,2018), The International Composers’ Competition for Composing a Mandatory Piece to Be Performed at the Second Round of the Moscow Conservatory’s Tenth International Competition of Performers on Wind and Percussion Instruments — I prize (Moscow, 2018).
Participated in 8th International Young Composers Academy in Tchaikovsky-city (September, 2018), in the Post Playwright Practice project (Moscow, March 2019), reMusik.org festival (St. Petersburg, May 2021) Cooperation Lab (Moscow, 2021), Open Space project (Moscow, 2021).
Issue 11
Pierre-Alain Monot
Conductor. After having completed his studies at the Conservatory and at the University in Neuchâtel, Pierre-Alain Monot was engaged as the principal trumpet for the Winterthur Musikkollegium Orchestra. He also continued studies in composition and conducting. He received advises from Jost Meier, Janos Fürst, and Janos Tamas. A master class with David Zinman and the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich provided a decisive impulse to his activities as a conductor.
In addition to a repertoire of more than 400 works built around music from the 20th and 21st centuries, he also conducts works from the classic, the romantic and post-romantic periods.
Artistic director of the Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain from 1995 till 2015 , he has also conducted the Biel Symphonic Orchestra, the Winterthur Musikkollegium, Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich, Lausanne Sinfonietta, the Philharmonic Orchestras of Rousse and Vratsa in Bulgaria, the Orchestre des Jeunesses musicales 2004, Graubündner Kammerphilharmonie, and the following Ensemble: Arc-en-ciel, TaG Ensemble, Sonemus Ensemble Sarajevo, Ensemble Ö! Ensemble Helix, opera nova Zürich, Nouvel Ensemble Montreal.
Pierre-Alain Monot accompanied renowned soloists as Lars Vogt, Heinrich Schiff, Reinhold Friedrich, Patrick Demenga, Daniel Gloger, Andrew Watts, Hanna Weinmeister, Maria Riccarda Wesseling, Brigitte Hool, Tomoko Tabguchi, Joëlle Charlier, Mareike Schellenberger, Bénédicte Tauran, Christopher Gillet, Philippe Huttenlocher, Donatienne Michel-Dansac, Simone Keller...
He recorded for labels as Claves, NEOS, Dabringhaus & Grimm, Relief and Grammont, covering works by Berg, Mahler, Schönberg, Zemlinski, Zwicker, Gaudibert, DeQing Wen und Kelterborn.
Monot also orchestrated works by Webern, Ibert, Moussorgsky, Clara Schumann, Brahms, most oft hem published by BIM and Universal Edition Wien.
Azim Karimov
Conductor. Azim Karimov was born in 1991 in Pärnu (Estonia). Graduated from the College of Music at the Moscow State Institute of Music named after A.G. Schnittke as an oboist (2012, with professor Alexey Lyubimov) and Tchaikovsky Moscow Conservatory specializing in opera and symphonic conducting (2018, with professor Gennadiy Rozhdestvensky). Also was an assistant-trainee at the Department of Opera and Symphony Conducting of the Moscow Conservatory under the guidance of Professor Anatoliy Levin.
He has taken part in master classes by V. Jurowski, V. Petrenko, V. Sinaisky and G. Griffiths. As an assistant conductor he worked with V. Yurovsky, M. Yurovsky, D. Rustioni, M. Brabbins and G. Griffiths.
He was a participant of the educational program of the Diaghilev Festival and a master class by T. Currentzis (2016, 2017). At the 2017 Diaghilev Festival he took part as a conductor of the #bradburyopera project (opera “Fruit from the Bottom of a Vase”, composer A. Besogonov, world premiere).
In 2009 he founded the student chamber orchestra «Entre Nous», which has won a number of awards at all-Russian and international competitions, including the Grand Prix and the Gold Medal of the Young Prague International music festival (2011, Prague). The orchestra has repeatedly taken part in various projects and festivals. Оne of the last performances of the orchestra was the Moscow premiere of Benjamin Britten's opera-parable «Curlew River» (a project of the Moscow Conservatory and the Royal College of Music in London).
In May 2018, Azim Karimov became the first Russian conductor to be invited to head the Kyoto International Music Festival (Kyoto, Japan).
In 2019, he served as chief conductor of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra of the Pavel Slobodkin Center.
In the 2020/21 season, he worked with the Lyon National Opera on Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's “The Golden Cockerel” at the International Festival of Opera and Classical Music in Aix-en-Provence (France).
Since 2020, he has been conductor of the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra (artistic director is Ivan Rudin)
Issue 12
Marcus Weiss
Performer, teacher, curator. He graduated from the Musikhochschule Basel as a saxophonist and over the years has developed a new repertoire for his instrument, presenting new works for saxophone and chamber music. Composers such as Mark Andre, Georges Aperghis, John Cage, Vinko Globokar, Georg Friedrich Haas, Helmut Lachenmann, Karlheinz Stockhausen and others wrote their works for him. Marcus Weiss collaborated with different european orchestras, played with ensembles Klangforum Wien, Musikfabrik, Ensemble Recherche, Ensemble Contrechamps, Ensemble Modern. He is also a member of the saxophone ensemble XASAX (Paris) and TRIO ACCANTO, where he plays with pianist Nicolas Hodges and percussionist Christian Dierstein.
Marcus Weiss teaches at the Musikhochschule Basel, European and American universities and conservatories. He is also a co-director of a masters program in contemporary music at the Musikhochschule Basel and lecturer at the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music and the Impuls Academy in Graz. Marcus Weiss is also the curator of such new music festivals as Tage für neue Musik and Festival Rümlingen.
Irina Sevastyanova
Curator, music journalist. Graduated from the Gnesins Russian Academy of Music with a degree in Music Journalism (bachelor's and master's degrees). Since 2018 she has been the curator and co-founder of the Gnesin Contemporary Music Week project and the curator of the Reheard ensemble, which was formed on this project. In 2019 she was the coordinator of the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble and co-curator of the concert program at the International Academy of Young Composers in Tchaikovsky. In 2020 she was the curator of two online projects: By Notes, where works of new music were analyzed, and Room Music, related to the online performance of new works. She also curated the project for young critics Residence on the website Stravinsky.online (2019) and Youth Laboratory in partnership with the Studio for New Music ensemble (2020). From 2017 to 2019 she was the author and editor of the Stravinsky.online website. Since 2017 she has been collaborating with the Russian magazine Musical Life as a critic.
Issue 13
Gerard Zinsstag
Performer and composer Gerard Zinsstag was born in Geneva in 1941. He studied at the Geneva Conservatory, Paris Conservatory and Chigiana Music Academy in Siena. He worked as a flutist in the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra and took composition lessons from Helmut Lachenmann. In 1976 and 1978 he took part in International summer courses for new music (Darmstadt), and from 1981 to 1982 he was awarded a DAAD scholarship. In 1979 he lived and worked in the United States mainly in New York and San Francisco. In 1982 he trained at IRCAM (Paris). In 1986 he co-founded the Zurich Music Days.
Аt different times he gave lectures and seminars at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg, Sorbonne University, IRCAM, CNSMDP, Berkeley University, Moscow and Paris conservatories. He was also a member of the jury for composition competitions in Arezzo, Paris, Parma, Taipei and Triest. Among his works are four string quartets; the opera Ubu Cocu; musical epic Gilgamesh; orchestral, chamber instrumental and chamber vocal works.
Personal site: www.gerardzinsstag.com
Sergej Tchirkov
Accordionist, bayan player, lecturer, curator. Expert of "Stravinsky's Dialogues: Switzerland" project.
Issue 14
Cathy Van Ech
Cathy van Eck (1979 Netherlands) composes relationships between everyday objects, human performers, and sound. She is interested in setting her gestures into unusual, surprising or poetic relationships with sounds, mainly by electronic means. The result could be called performative sound art, since it combines elements from performance art, electronic music, and visual art. She has a teaching position at the University of the Arts in Bern, Switzerland. Her book Between Air and Electricity – Microphones and Loudspeakers as Musical Instruments was published in 2017. She lives and works in Zurich.
Miroslava Tyrina
Musical journalist and curator. Stravinsky.online editor. Domrist and mandolinist specializing in contemporary academic music. Geometry of sound soloist. Participant of the Pro Arte School of cultural journalism (2020).
Miroslava graduated from the Gnesins Russian Academy of Music in 2021. She has won numerous international competitions. She has curated 30+ contemporary music projects in the Museum of Moscow, Center for Drama and Directing, Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, Multimedia Art Museum Moscow, Art Center Moscow, Moscow Philharmonic Society, Mesto Festival in Smolensk.
Issue 15
Alfred Zimmerlin
Alfred Zimmerlin was born in 1955, he is a composer and improviser. Zimmerlin studied musicology, ethnomusicology and composition (with Hans Wüthrich and Hans Ulrich Lehmann). In a lively concert career, he has performed as an improvising cellist with numerous formations in Europe and the USA, including at the most important festivals (Willisau, Ulrichsberg, Nickelsdorf, Leipzig, Dresden, New Music America Miami, Donaueschingen and many more), for example with KARL ein KARL, the trio Kimmig-Studer-Zimmerlin, the electro band Zimmerlin Stoffner Meier and numerous other, also intermedial formations. For 36 years he was a member of the innovative composers' collective and improvisation trio KARL ein KARL. Zimmerlin's extensive list of works includes piano pieces, chamber music with or without electronics, vocal music, orchestral music or music theatre works.
His diverse activities are documented on numerous recordings. Among others, he received the Culture Prize of the Canton of Zurich in 2014 and the Swiss Music Prize in 2016. Since 2010 he has been professor of free improvisation at the FHNW Hochschule für Musik - Musik-Akademie Basel / Sonic Space Basel.
Anton Svetlichny
Russian composer, member of the composer group "Resistance of the material". Lives in Rostov-on-Don. In addition to composition, he is engaged in teaching, lectures on contemporary music at various venues in Rostov and in the South of Russia, publishes in periodicals, teaches music theory and composition at "Computer Music Composition Courses" held at the Center for Additional Education of the Rostov Conservatory, acts as a keyboard player in the ensemble of contemporary music InEnsemble, works as a session musician and arranger.
Graduated from the Rostov Conservatory (2004) in the class of Prof. V. Khodosh. Participated in master classes by L. Andriessen, M. Padding, R. de Mann (Netherlands), F. Hurel (France), E. Furrer, L. Dowling (Austria), V. Tarnopolsky (Russia). Also trained under the guidance of F. Bedrossyan (France), P. Billone (Italy), B. Furrer (Switzerland), R. Cendo (France) and P. Ablinger (Austria) in the framework of the International Academies of the Moscow Ensemble of Contemporary Music (2011, 2015).
Among the performers of Anton Svetlichny's music are MASM ensembles, Studio of New Music, GAM Ensemble (Moscow), eNsemble, Hammer ensemble, {instead} ensemble (Saint Petersburg‐Petersburg), Nostri Temporis, "Ricochet" (Ukraine), Hong Kong Camerata (Hong Kong), Synchromy (USA), ums'n'jip (Switzerland), Platypus and Shallfeld (Austria), Motocontrario (Italy), dissonArt (Greece), Espai Sonor (Spain), Construction Site Contemporary Music Ensemble (Serbia), as well as Ricardo Descalzo (Spain, piano), Peter Katina (Slovakia, accordion), Sergey Chirkov (accordion), Natalia Pshenichnikova (voice), Natalia Solovyova (piano), Alexey Shmurak (piano), various Russian orchestras and chamber ensembles. The author of music for performances and mass events, including "Hamlet Machine" (Moscow, Moscow Art Theater, 2009, directed by Kirill Serebrennikov), "Netochka and Christmas" (New Year's musical, Moscow, DC ZIL, 2014), "Two Queens" (musical, Irkutsk Musical Theater, 2017), the opening ceremony of the mixed martial arts championship ProFC 50 (Rostov-on‐Don, 2013).
Issue 16
Volker Böhm
Volker Böhm, born 1971 in Freiburg (Germany), is a musician, sound designer, programmer and composer who lives in Basel (Switzerland). As a freelancer he has been working at the Experimental Studio of the Heinrich Strobel Foundation of the SWR in Freiburg and taught summer courses in electronic music in Croatia and Hungary. Since 2003 he is Professor for Electronic Music at the Music-Academy in Basel. He is head of the audio design department and co-head of the Elektronisches Studio (ESB).
In addition to his teaching activities he realizes art, music and media projects in the fields of new music, theatre, (sound) installation and electroacoustic improvisation.
Olga Bochihina
Russian composer, lecturer, Associate Professor of the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory. Born in 1980 in Kirov, Russian Federation.
Laureate of various All-Russian and international prizes, holder of the "Swiss Government Scholarship for foreign students" (2009-2011), Olga took part in various international workshops and academies; among them there are the «Young Composers' Meetings - 2004» in Apeldoorn (Holland, 2004), International Ensemble- and Composers- Academy for Contemporary Music «Impuls 2009» (Graz, Austria, 2009). She had workshops with H. Lachenmann, B. Furrer, T. Murail, V. Globokar, L. Andriessen, K. de Vries, A. Gaussin, G. Zinstag, and others. O.Bochikhina graduated from the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory (class of Prof. V. Tarnopolsky) and from the Musik Akademie der Stadt Basel (Specialized Master's Program in Composition) under Prof. E.Oña and Prof. J.Ullmann.
Her works have been performed by the Mariinsky Orchestra, Y.F.Svetlanov State Academic Symphonic Orchestra, «de ereprijs» orchestra (Netherlands), «Russian Philharmonic» orchestra, London Sinfonietta (Great Britain), «Ensemble Modern», ensemble «Studio of New Music», "Türmchen Ensemble" (Germany), "Cikada string quartet" (Sweden), "Quasars ensemble" (Slovenia), "Phoenix ensemble" (Switzerland), Pekarsky Percussion Ensemble; she has collaborated with conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Vladimir Jurowsky, Igor Dronov, Sergey Kondrashev, Ilan Volkov, Jürg Henneberger.
The works of Olga Bochikhina have been broadly presented at various international contemporary music festivals in Germany, the Netherlands, France, Austria, Slovenia, Switzerland, Sweden, and Italy. These include: «6th Weimarer Frühjahrstage für zeitgenössische Musik» (Weimar, 2005), «The Moscow autumn» (Moscow, from 2005), «The Moscow forum» (2007-2013), Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival (2008), «New Horizons» (Saint-Petersburg, 2008), "Young Euro Classic" (Berlin, 2009), "World New Music Days" (Sweden, Växjö, 2009, Slovenia, Košice, 2013), Frau Musika Nova (Cologne, 2009), International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt (2010), "Manca festival" (Nice, 2010), "Schein-Polyphonie 2011" (Switzerland) in a collaboration with Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, "Europe through the eyes of Russians. Russia through the eyes of Europeans" (Moscow, 2011), Venice Biennale (2015), "The Other Space" (Moscow, 2013, 2018), "Tiroler Festspiele Erl"(Austria, 2016). In 2007, with the group of composers took part at the International opera project «Boxing Pushkin» premiered in Holland (Arnhem, Neijmegen, Den Haag, Apeldoorn, Amsterdam).
In November 2018 (in cooperation with VI International Actual Music Festival "The Other Space") she developed and realized the stage and musical concept of a multimedia project for ensemble, electronic and video: "FACE: The Mute Opera" (video realization – Ivan Saharov).
Issue 17
Oscar Bianchi
Born in Milan, holding dual Italian-Swiss citizenships, Oscar Bianchi completed degrees in composition, choir conducting, and electronic music at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory of Milan. He pursued further studies in composition, taking part in master programs such as at IRCAM - Centre Pompidou and a doctoral degree at Columbia University in New York under Tristan Murail.
Commissioned by the Aix-en-Provence Festival and Théâtre & Musique, his first opera, Thanks to My Eyes, libretto, and direction by Joël Pommerat received critical acclaim by audiences and critics alike (A masterly portrait of Melancholy, Le Monde, July 7, 2011). His music has been performed by outstanding orchestras and soloists such as the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, DSO, Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien, London Sinfonietta, Ictus, Asko-Schoenberg, JACK, Diotima, Arditti, Les Percussions de Strasbourg, Remix, Nieuw Ensemble, l’Itineraire, Contrechamps, ICE, Alarm Will Sound, Sabine Meyer, David Grimal, Pablo Heras-Casado, Markus Poschner, Jonathan Stockhammer, KNM Berlin, Phoenix, Collegium Novum Zürich.
Upcoming projects include new works for the Lucerne Festival, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Musikfabrik, Accroche Note, and Ensemble Modern. Oscar Bianchi was a guest of the DAAD Kunstlerprogramm Berlin, Pro-Helvetia in Warsaw and Johannesburg, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida. He has been awarded numerous prizes, such as the Gaudeamus first Prize and the Grand Prix de la SACEM. «Partendo» has been awarded the 2016 IMC International Rostrum of composer's prize while his first CD Portrait won the German Record Critics' Award in 2013. As the artistic director of the International Young Composers Academy in Ticino and board member of the reMusik Festival St Petersburg, Oscar Bianchi has been a champion for a young generation of talented composers worldwide world who he fosters tirelessly.
Elina Andrianova
Editor of the Internet version of the scientific-critical journal "Music Academy". In September 2021, she curated the educational program of the Resonance Prize for Music Critics. In 2019, she coordinated the reMusik.org contemporary music festival. Graduate of the Master's program "Music Criticism" at the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences (St. Petersburg State University) and the St. Petersburg Conservatory.