2018 __ SKJU __ otcop-tpus
PROGRAM
SKJU - otcop-tpus
opening the composition
process to public
spaces
Keitaro Takahashi (JP/CH)
Study, 2018, world premiere
Simone Conforti (I/CH)
WhatAreWeWaitingFor, 2018, world premiere
UMS 'n JIP (CH)
Burgerspittel, 2018, world premiere
IDEA
MUSIC & SOUND LABORATORY
SKJU is a laboratory bringing together four musicians,
composers and researchers with a common purpose defined by
specific projects. It consists of S(imone Conforti),
K(eitaro Takahashi), J(IP), U(MS), basically working on
electronics, voice and recorders. SKJU designs a new
listening and music exploration experience by extending the
traditional audience and stage setting exhibiting music
itself.
INNER PERMEABILITY
SKJU rethinks and reshapes the music experience and
exploration for both musicians and the audience: for a long
time in human history, music has been exclusively related to
a specific place where people have been performing live.
Since the possibity to record and broadcast music,
especially since the appearance of digital media, this has
deeply changed. For this, extending the possibilities to
access music and sound is an important issue: both by
composing and performing differently, as well as by
considering space and time differently.
EXPERIENCED RESEARCHERS AND MUSICIANS
SKJU can look back on many independent and common research
as well as artistic projects: Recorder Map and Recorderology
(recorder playing techniques mapping, web app programming,
financed by the Maja Sacher Foundation), PRIME Research
(Paetzold Recorder Investigation for Music with Electronics,
HEMU Lausanne), Japan
& Italy Project
2012- (commissioning both Japanese and Italian composers new
pieces), common keynotes and
publications at the International Computer Music
Conference in Utrecht 2016, at the Web
Audio Conference in Atlanta 2016, Musikakademie
Basel 2014, Elektronisches Studio Basel 2015, festival
appearancies at
ICMC Athens 2014,
Forum Wallis 2013/2016/2018,
Archipel Geneva 2017, specific and experimental
recordings documenting the repertoire of UMS 'n JIP,
pluriannual work and research at highly specialized
enterprises such as http://www.musstdesign.com
(hi-end loudpeaker systems) and http://www.musi-co.com
(algorythmic composition).
UMS, JIP, Keitaro Takahashi, Simone Conforti, Unternehmen Mitte Basel, 9/2017
with Simone Conforti, Basel / Festival Archipel Geneva, 2017
with Keitaro Takahashi, ICMC 2014 Athens
with Keitaro Takahashi, WAC Atlanta 2016
SKJU, recording sessions at ESB Basel, 8/2017
SKJU, tests at Schloss Leuk, 8/2017
COMPOSERS
Keitaro Takahashi is a
composer, media artist, and programmer born in Japan in
1986. He received his bachelor of arts degree from Kunitachi
College of Music, Tokyo, Japan, in 2009. He later received
the MA (2011) and MASP (2013) of music composition in the
Musik-Akademie der Stadt Basel, Switzerland. He studied
composition and computer music with Professors Takayuki Rai,
and Erik Oña, music theory with Qiming Yuan, and computer
programming with Shu Matsuda. His works, both chamber music
and electronic music were awarded and selected by IRINO
prize, by ISB Composition Competition (Grand Prize Chamber
Division) and by the Christoph Delz Foundation (Werkjahr
2014), by ICMC, he was also finalist from Musica Nova 2011,
and so on. As a researcher and programming developer, he has
been engaging in “Recorder Map” project in Forschung und
Entwicklung Basel during 2013-14, “Recorderology” since
2014, “Radiophone” by SINERGIA project between Basel and
Weimar University since 2014, and DIPS project in Kunitachi
Music College of Music Tokyo since 2008. Currently,
Takahashi is working on his Ph.D. in Composition and
Technology of Art with Professor Erik Oña between the Basel
Music Academy and the Porto Catholic University.
http://neoterize.net/
Simone Conforti, born in Winterthur (Switzerland) in the 1979, has been graduated in Flute in 1999 at the Conservatory of Florence and in Electronic Music in 2004 obtaining the maximum evaluation. He works as researcher since 2003 in the MARTLab, developed by the Conservatory of Music "L. Cherubini" of Florence and the ISTI Institute (part of the National Research Council CNR), center involved in research and production for the sound documents preservation and restoration. As a teacher, he worked, for the Music and New Technologies department (Bachelor and Master courses) of the Conservatory of Music "L. Cherubini" of Florence, since 2004. He also works regularly as a teacher for courses and workshops reguarding musical technologies, relationship between musicians and the contemporary music (especially in the field of relationship between acoustic and electronic sounds) and sound documents preservation and restoration. He works as electronic composer composing his own musics and collaborating, with many musicians and artists, in the development of the electronic music for their works. Between these we find: Ivan Fedele, Adriano Guarnieri, Daniele Lombardi, vocal ensemble L'homme armé, Maurizio Nannucci and Roberto Ciaccio, such activity has brought him to execute various jobs in important locations like Festival MANCA in Nice, the GAM of Turin, the MART of Rovereto, Festival Acanthes 2009, Teatro dal Verme, Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica. In 2003 he won the competition "Severino Gazzelloni". He published for AIB (Italian Library Association), ISTI Institute (part of the National Research Council CNR), Biennale Musica (Venice), Suvini Zerboni, Mudima Music, die Schachtel, Neos.
http://www.temporoom.net/en/simone_conforti.php
Extraordinary diversity describes the composer and multi-instrumentalist Ulrike Mayer-Spohn who plays the recorder (with a focus on contemporary music), as well as historical string instruments (fiddle and baroque violin). She studied composition and audio design with Erik Oña at the Studio of Electronic Music, Academy of Music, Basel, beginning to compose in 2007, and receiving commissions from the festival Forum Valais and the international New Music Days, Shanghai. Her work has been performed by the Stuttgart Vocal soloists, Ensemble Phoenix Basel, Vertigo, DissonArt, L'Arsenale, cool a cappella (1st Prize world choir games 2008) and her own ensemble Ums' n Jip in Switzerland, France, Greece, Italy, Russia, Australia, the USA and China, premiered under the baton of Beat Furrer, Mark Foster, Tsung Yeh, Jürg Henneberger and Filippo Perocco and broadcast by the Swiss radio. She was awarded the 1st Prize at the London Ear Festival Composition Contest in 2016, the 1st Prize at the Walter Ferrato Composition Contest in Savona, Italy in 2017, the 1st Prize at the Weimarer Frühjahrstage für Zeitgenössische Musik Composition Contest in 2017, the 2nd Prize in the composition competition Culturescapes 2010, 2nd Prize in the composition competition at the Bern music festival 2011, the Scholarship Award for 2011 at the Music Village Mount Pelion in Greece and the Call for Scores Award L'Arsenale Treviso, Italy 2011. In the ensemble Ums' n Jip she has undertaken research in the field of musical theater (chamber operas One, Two, Three, Four, Five), live electronic music and sound spacialization. She studied recorder with Ulrike Mauerhofer at the Musikhochschule Karlsruhe, with Conrad Steinmann and Corina Marti at the Schola Cantorum Basel before specializing in contemporary music and studying with Dorothea Winter at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. From 2009-11 she studied for a specialized master's degree in contemporary performance at the HSM in Basel supervised by Jürg Henneberger, Marcus Weiss and Mike Svoboda and has taken masterclasses with Marion Verbruggen, Peter van Heyghen, Sebastien Marq and Gerd Lünenbürger. She studied baroque violin and viola with Martina Graulich and David Plantier and fiddle with Randal Cook in Basel. Ulrike Mayer-Spohn works with internationally leading composers and annually plays more than 20 world premieres dedicated to her, which she has recorded for the radio as well as VDE Gallo on CD. Together with the Swiss composer and singer Javier Hagen, she established the experimental new music duo Ums `N Jip for voice, recorder and electronics, which, alongside the Ensemble Modern, Intercontemporain and Kronos is one of the most active ensembles worldwide and in 2011 won the prestigious MusiquePro scholarship. Since 1999, Ulrike Mayer-Spohn has also performed as a recorder player, violinist, violist and fiddle player in specialized early music ensembles such as the Amsterdam Barok Compagnie, Freitagsakademie, Collegium Musicum Stuttgart, La Chapelle Ancienne, Musica Poetica, Muscadin and La Morra and has performed in Germany, China, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy and Switzerland.
Javier Hagen is one of the most astonishing classical singers of his generation: new music, performance art and Swiss folk music rank equally in his repertoire alongside opera and early music. Hagen was born as Javier-Ignacio Palau-Ribes (JIP) in 1971 in Barcelona and raised on the Mediterranean and in the Valais Alps. He studied classical singing (both tenor and countertenor) in Germany, Italy and Switzerland with Roland Hermann, Alain Billard and Nicolai Gedda, and composition with Heiner Goebbels and Wolfgang Rihm. He studied Lied with Irwin Gage, Hartmut Höll and Ernst Haefliger and early music with Karel van Steenhoven and Kees Boeke. He has a four-octave vocal range. Hagen has worked with world-class composers such as Reimann, Kagel, Rosemann and Eötvös and leading artists from the worlds of concrete poetry and constructive art. Guest appearances have taken him to the modern music festivals in Donaueschingen, Zurich, Geneva, Lucerne, Karlsruhe, Amsterdam, Strasbourg, Bologna, Milan, Prague, New York, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Adelaide, Riga, Avignon and Berlin. Alongside operatic roles such as Handel's Giulio Cesare, Zsupan (Kalman), Dardanus (Rameau), Stanislaus (Zeller), Bruno (Roesler), Toni (Kalman) and Pappacoda (Strauss), Javier Hagen has premiered more than 200 works, including operas 'à l'air en verre' by Daniel Mouthon 'eismeer' by Christoph Schiller, 'poem ohne held' by Regina Irman, 'esther de racine' by Boris Yoffe, 'The Madman's Diary' by Guo Wenjing, 'Marienglas' by Beat Gysin, 'Les Musiciens de Brème' by Wen Deqing, 'Keyner nit' by Mathias Steinauer, 'Ushba et Tetnuld' by Nicolas Vérin and almost all vocal works by Maria Porten. He has made more than 50 recordings and broadcasts for Swiss, German, French, Czech, Chinese, Mongolian, Spanish, Egyptian, Italian and Latvian radio and television. He won prizes at international contemporary music and composition competitions in 2001, 2004 and 2008 in Basel, Lausanne and Dusseldorf. In 2003, his distorted folk song arrangements "s´sch mr alles 1 Ding" were released on CD on the Swiss label "musiques suisses". His compositions, in particular the vocal works, are performed throughout Europe, Israel, China, Korea, Russia, Australia, North and Central America, by ensembles and conductors including Titus Engel, Ensemble Phoenix, dissonArt, Taller Sonoro, Basler Madrigalisten, Schweizer Jugendchor, Männerstimmen Basel, Philip Bride, Eliana Burki, Amar Quartet. In 2012, a selection of his graphic scores was shown at the prestigious Museum of Modern Art ‘haus konstruktiv’ in Zurich. At the European Youth Choir Festival 2012, Javier Hagen represented German-speaking Switzerland in the context of 'Swiss Composers meet Europe'. With Ulrike Mayer-Spohn, Hagen formed the experimental new music duo UMS 'N JIP, which, with over 100 concerts annually is one of the most active and prolific contemporary music ensembles around the world and winner of more than 20 awards, among them the prestigious scholarship MusiquePro. Javier Hagen, who speaks 6 languages, also directs the international contemporary music festival Forum Wallis, hosting Stockhausen's famous Helicopter String Quartet with Arditti in 2015. He is called as an expert on experimental music theater for the University of Arts in Bern, President of the Swiss Section of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM Switzerland), of IGNM-VS, as well as a board member of the European Conference of Promoters of New Music ECPNM, Swiss Music Edition and Swissfestivals. He presents guest lectures at universities in Shanghai, Moscow, Adelaide, Thessaloniki, Barcelona, New York, Riga and Hong Kong. He is a jury member at national and international composition and new music competitions (a.o.ISCM World Music Days Young Composers Award, Bohol Int. Choir Competition Philippines) and a member of various committees on behalf of Valais as well as for the inventory of the cultural heritage on behalf of UNESCO. In 2007 he was nominated for "Walliser of the Year." In 2013 he was awarded the Prix Culturel de l'Etat du Valais. In 2017 he has been elected to the Academic Board of the Escuela de Invierno, the FNOBA Contemporary Opera Academy at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires.
PHOTOS
Leuk, Schloss Leuk & Burgerspittel, 5/2018
REFERENCES
SUPPORTS
