Isabel Mundry

Isabel Mundry, Brice Pauset

Isabel Mundry

Isabel Mundry

Isabel Mundry

Isabel Mundry

Isabel Mundry

Isabel Mundry

Isabel Mundry

Isabel Mundry's work is characterized by a unique sonic language that investigates the relationships between time, space, and perception in rich, multi-faceted ways. In doing so, she creates new pathways and different realities in her compositions, which are explored through the timbre, harmony and rhythms of her nuanced music. Born in Hesse in 1963 and raised in Berlin, Isabel Mundry honed her composition skills under Frank Michael Beyer, Gösta Neuwirth and Hans Zender, among others. This training was complemented by studies in musicology, art history and philosophy, as well as a course in computer science and composition at the Paris IRCAM. After gaining attention in the 90s for her chamber music compositions and ensemble and orchestral works, her first music theater work was a resounding success: in 2005, the premiere of Ein Atemzug - die Odyssee at the Deutsche Oper Berlin (Reinhild Hoffmann, staging; musical direction, Peter Rundel), was named best premiered work of the year by the magazine Opernwelt. In the work, the composer deals with layers of remembering and forgetting. Isabel Mundry’s interest in fusing musical structure to spatial presentation continued with Nicht Ich – über das Marionettentheater, a concert staged and conceived with the dancer and choreographer Jörg Weinöhl; it premiered in 2011 at the Kleistfestival in Thun in a performance by the Ensemble Recherche and the Vokalensemble Zürich and was subsequently shown in Zurich, Basel, Lyon, Dusseldorf and Salzburg. Isabel Mundry's numerous works for solo instruments and orchestras include Nocturno, first performed in 2006 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Barenboim and later interpreted by the Staatskapelle Berlin and Dresden, the RSO Vienna and the Hamburg Philharmonic. Her piano concerto Ich und Du, which premiered at the Donaueschinger Musiktage 2008 with the SWR Symphony Orchestra under Pierre Boulez, later expanded into Non-Places, a piano concerto. For the 2013 Happy New Ears Prize award ceremony the work was premiered by Isabel Mundry with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under Emilio Pomarico and subsequently awarded the German Music Authors' Prize by GEMA. Among the world premieres of recent years are works of various genres with diverse sources of inspiration: in Vogelperspektiven for ensemble (world premiere 2016, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks), inspired by poems by Thomas Kling, Isabel Mundry gives life to the changing perspectives of the human and animal worlds. Zu Fall, premiered by Tonhalle Orchester Zürich 2016, investigates the relationship between activity and passivity and features onstage as a shadow play a chaotically oscillating pendulum, which conducts the conductor as it pendulates. In Sounds, Archeologies, premiered in 2018 by Trio Catch as part of the Berlin Ultrasound Festival, she questions the proximity and distance of historical objects and cultural identities. And in the a-cappella choral piece Mouhanad, based on an interview with a Syrian refugee and premiered in Donaueschingen by the SWR Vocal Ensemble in 2018, cultural resonances and new acoustic neighborhoods are examined. Summer 2019 finds Isabel Mundry in residence as a fellow of the Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Umbria. Several major world premieres are currently in the works: a composition for percussion and ensemble will be featured in February 2020 both at the closing concert of the Présences Festival with the Ensemble intercontemporain and in Cologne with the Ensemble Musikfabrik. For the closing concert of the 2019/20 season, the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin commissioned Isabel Mundry to compose a work for the Boulez Ensemble. And a new Viola Concerto for Nils Mönkemeyer will be premiered in summer 2020 with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Michael Wendeberg at the Suntory Festival. Isabel Mundry's numerous awards and honors include the Kranichstein Music Prize in 1996, a 2001 Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation Award and the 2011 Heidelberg Artists' Prize. In 2007/08 she was the Staatskapelle Dresden’s first composer-in-residence. Isabel Mundry is a member of the Academy of the Arts in Berlin and Munich as well as the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz. Since 1998 she has often been a lecturer at the Darmstadt Summer Courses. After holding a professorship at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts from 1996, she has been a professor of composition at the Zurich University of the Arts since 2004 and, since 2011, a professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich.

Hilda Paredes

Hilda Paredes

Hilda Paredes

Hilda Paredes

Hilda Paredes

Firmly established as one of the leading Mexican composers of her generation, she has made her home in London since 1979 and her music is now performed widely around the world. As an active participant in master classes at Dartington Summer School, studied with Peter Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle and Richard Rodney Bennett. After graduating at the Guildhall School of Music, she obtained her Master of Arts at City University in London and completed her PhD at Manchester University. She continues to be involved in the musical life of her native country, having taught at the University in Mexico City and several other music institutions and was also a radio producer of new music. She has been recipient of important awards, such as the Arts Council of Great Britain fellowship for composers; the Rockefeller, Fund for Culture Mexico/USA and the J.S. Guggenheim Fellowship in the USA and is currently beneficiary of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores, (FONCA) in Mexico. As a freelance lecturer, Hilda has taught composition and lectured at Manchester University, the University of San Diego California, University of Buffalo and other prestigious Universities in the US, at Centre Acanthes in France and in 2007 was appointed the Darius Milhuad Visiting Professor at Mills College in the US. In 2011, she has been visiting professor at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya en Barcelona. Her works are published by University of York Music Press: www.uymp.co.uk Hilda Paredes has been commissioned by soloists, ensembles and orchestras around the world. Her music has been performed by internationally renowned ensembles such as Trio Arbós, Arditti Quartet, Aventure, Court Circuit, Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Recherche, Ensemble Signal, Ensamble Sospeso, Grup Instrumental de Valencia, London Sinfonietta, Lontano, The New Julliard Ensemble, Neue Vocalsolisten, Ensamble Sospeso, L’Instant donné, London Sinfonietta, and Lontano, amongst others. Her music has been widely performed at important international festivals, such as Huddersfield, Edinburgh Festival in the UK; Eclat and Ultraschall in Germany; Musica and Octobre en Normandie, in France; Wien Modern, in Austria; Akiyoshidai and Takefu Music Festivals, in Japan; Archipel ans Music monat , in Switzerland; De Ijsbreker Chamber Music Festival, in Amsterdam; Warsaw Autumn, in Poland; Ultima, in Oslo; Melbourne Festival, in Australia; Festival of Arts and Ideas in the USA, Ars Musica in Bruxelles; Festival de Alicante and ENSEMS Festival, in Spain; Festival Internacional Cervantino in Mexico, amongst others.

Julia Wolfe

Julia Wolfe

Julia Wolfe

The 2019 world premiere of Fire in my mouth, a large-scale work for orchestra and women's chorus, by the New York Philharmonic with The Crossing and the Young People's Chorus of New York City, received extensive acclaim — one reviewer called the work "a monumental achievement in high musical drama, among the most commandingly imaginative and emotively potent works of any kind that I've ever experienced." (The Nation Magazine) The premiere recording of Fire in my mouth is released on Decca Gold, and was recorded live during the world premiere. It has received two Grammy nominations (best contemporary classical composition; best engineered classical album). The work is the third in a series of compositions about the American worker: 2009’s Steel Hammer, which examines the folk-hero John Henry, and the 2014 Pulitzer prize-winning work, Anthracite Fields, a concert-length oratorio for chorus and instruments, which draws on oral histories, interviews, speeches, and more to honor the people who persevered and endured in the Pennsylvania Anthracite coal region. Mark Swed of the LA Times wrote Anthracite Fields "captures not only the sadness of hard lives lost...but also of the sweetness and passion of a way of daily life now also lost. The music compels without overstatement. This is a major, profound work." Wolfe’s music is distinguished by an intense physicality and a relentless power that pushes performers to extremes and demands attention from the audience. She has written a major body of work for strings, from quartets to full orchestra. Her music has been heard at venues throughout the world and has been recorded on Cantaloupe Music, Teldec, Point/Universal, Sony Classical, and Argo/Decca. In addition to receiving the Pulitzer Prize, Wolfe was a 2016 MacArthur Fellow, she received the 2015 Herb Alpert Award in Music, and was named Musical America's 2019 Composer of the Year. She is on faculty at the NYU Steinhardt School and is co-founder/co-artistic director of New York’s legendary music collective Bang on a Can. Her music is published by Red Poppy, Ltd. (ASCAP) and is distributed worldwide by Ricordi/Universal Music Classical.

Chaya Czernowin

Chaya Czernowin

Chaya Czernowin

Chaya Czernowin