PluComp
La Composition Pluraliste, PluComp, est l'un des premiers cours d'été de composition qui aborde la composition musicale d'une perspective non-européenne. Le cours de composition a eu lieu en Franche-Comté du 3 au 9 juillet 2023. L'accent de cette année était mis sur la musique de l'Iran et de la Turquie. Les compositeurs iraniens Reza Vali et Shahab Pâranj, ainsi que le compositeur turc Erberk Eryilmaz, ont abordé des aspects de la composition musicale tels que la mélodie, le rythme, la polyphonie, la forme et l'instrumentation, du point de vue iranien et turc.
Six compositeurs ont été sélectionnés pour participer au cours d'été de cette année, il s'agit de :
Adam Shield (États-Unis)
Tiag Yi Tan (Singapour)
Atakan Turaç (Turquie)
Berfin Deniz (Turquie)
Wajdi Abou Diab (Liban)
Maria del Mar Ribas Requena (Espagne)
Ce soir, nous présenterons la musique de ces six jeunes compositeurs ainsi que des compositions des professeurs Shahab Pâranj, Erberk Eryilmaz et Reza Vali. De plus, nous présenterons des improvisations sur le dulcimer à marteaux persan, le santour, le tambour persan, le tombak, et le luth turc, le baghlama.
Grâce aux incroyables interprètes :
Kami Ghavi Helm
Ava Shadmani
Damon Taheri
Et Katarina Leskovar
d'avoir préparé et appris 9 morceaux en seulement 6 jours. Nous espérons que vous apprécierez ce concert.
Reza Vali
Reza Vali was born in Ghazvin, Persia (Iran), in 1952. He began his music studies at the Conservatory of Music in Tehran. In 1972 he went to Austria and studied music education and composition at the Academy of Music in Vienna.
After graduating from the Academy of Music, he moved to the United States and continued his studies at the University of Pittsburgh, receiving his Ph.D. in music theory and composition in 1985. Mr. Vali has been a faculty member of the School of Music at Carnegie Mellon University since 1988.
He has received numerous honors and commissions, including the honor prize of the Austrian Ministry of Arts and Sciences, two Andrew W. Mellon Fellowships, commissions from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Kronos Quartet, the Carpe Diem String Quartet, the Seattle Chamber Players, and the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, as well as grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Pittsburgh Foundation, and the Pittsburgh Board of Public Education.
He was selected by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust as the Outstanding Emerging Artist for which he received the Creative Achievement Award. Vali's orchestral compositions have been performed in the United States by the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Baltimore Symphony, the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, and Orchestra 2001.
His chamber works have received performances by Cuarteto Latinoamericano, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the Carpe Diem String Quartet, Kronos Quartet, the Seattle Chamber Players, and the Da Capo Chamber Players. His music has been performed in Europe, China, Chile, Mexico, Hong Kong, and Australia and is recorded on the Deutsche Grammophon, Naxos, New Albion, MMC, Ambassador, Albany, and ABC Classics labels.
Turkish-American composer and performer Erberk Eryılmaz is recognized for bringing the energy of the folk music of his homeland to the concert stage with a creative and dramatic approach. His recent album of chamber works, "Dances of the Yogurt Maker" won a Grammy Award with producer Judith Sherman and received two gold medals at Global Music Awards in 2022. His compositions have been performed at some of the world’s most important concert venues such as Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House, the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana, Cuba, and the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. Eryılmaz was selected to participate in the Moon Arts Project which will include his work, "Was her face the moon or sunlight?", expected to be sent to the Moon in 2022. This project will bring the first music to the Moon and the work received its premiere at NASA, next to Saturn V, history’s largest rocket.
His compositions and performances have been featured multiple times on Turkish State Radio and American Public Media's Performance Today and have received praise by Fanfare Magazine, Andante, CNN Turk, Cumhuriyet, Hürriyet, Sanattan Yansımalar, as well as the Washington Post, which describes his music as a “dervish-like explosion.” He has been featured on records released by MSR Classics, Naxos, Albany Records, Innova Recordings, Wirripang, and Parma Recordings.
As a composer, pianist, conductor, and folk percussionist, he has collaborated with many important ensembles including the Presidential Symphony Orchestra of Turkey, Houston Symphony, River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, Fairfax Symphony, Fargo-Moorhead Symphony, Austin Camerata, Apollo Chamber Players, and Carpe Diem, Tesla and Del Sol String Quartets, ZOFO Duet, as well as the Bowen McCauley Dance Company.
Eryılmaz has received numerous awards including BNY Mellon Award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement, Sallie Shepherd Perkins Prize for Best Achievement at Rice University, the Diemente Prize at the Hartt School and top prizes at the Van Rooy Competition for Musical Excellence, Silberman Chamber Music Competition, Carnegie Mellon University's Harry G. Archer Orchestra Composition Competition and String Quartet Composition Competition.
Shahab Paranj
Persian composer, and Instrumentalist Shahab Paranj, based in Los Angeles,
holds degrees in music composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music,
Manhattan School of Music, and the University of California, Los Angeles. He is
considered as one of the pioneers among his generation of composers whose composition style integrates Persian and Western composition techniques.
Known as a tombak virtuoso, he has performed, recorded, and collaborated with numerous highly-respected artists worldwide. Acclaimed by the San Francisco Examiner as “impressive” and by composer John Adams as “unique,” Paranj blends Persian rhythmic and melodic influences with Western texture and form in his composition.
Recent commissions include works for ensembles such as the Russian String Orchestra, Intersection Contemporary Music Ensemble, Long Beach Opera, Aleron Trio, San Francisco New Music Ensemble, One Great City Duo, MSM symphony orchestra, and International Low Brass Trio. He has written an original score for the movie “Dressage,” the winner of the 2018 feature film (generation category) in the Berlin Film Festiva.
He has received formal recognition from the Mehr Humanitarian Society (2010) and
the City and County of San Francisco (2011)
Katarina Leskovar
Katarina Leskovar is performing internationally as a soloist, chamber and orchestra musician and is a recipient of various international prizes. She is a performer that is constantly seeking parallels between old and new, past and present and is therefore working across a diverse array of musical branches. She has performed at the festivals including Warsaw Autumn, Klangspuren Festival, Davos Festival, Carinthischer Sommer, Festival Ljubljana, Kammermusikfestival Hohenstaufen in Beethoven-Haus Bonn, Musikverein and Konzerthaus Vienna, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Semperoper Dresden, Cité Internationale des Arts Paris and The Concertgebouw Amsterdam. In 2019 she undertook an internship with Basel Sinfonietta. Katarina has premiered pieces by Beat Furrer, Judit Varga, Uroš Rojko and many others. She has also been a member of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester with concerts conducted by Herbert Blomstedt, Jonathan Nott and Christian Thielemann as part of the joint project with Staatskapelle Dresden. Katarina performed as a soloist with the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra and participated in masterclasses with Heinz Holliger, members of Ensemble Modern, Ivry Gitlis, Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, Torleif Thedeen, Wen-Sinn Yang and others. She is a student at the Hochschule für Musik Basel where she finished the Master of Performance in the class of Danjulo Ishizaka and is now finishing her second master studies specializing in contemporary chamber music with the ensemble zone expérimentale.
Ava Shadmani
Ava Shadmani earned her Doctor of Musical Arts in Violin Performance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2021. She studied with David Perry of the Pro Arte Quartet and was awarded a fellowship in UW’s prestigious graduate string quartet, the Rabin String Quartet. She is currently pursuing an Artist Diploma at The Glenn Gould School of The Royal Conservatory in Toronto, where she studies with the renowned violin pedagogue, Paul Kantor. She is a recipient of the Arlene Nimmons Pach Scholarship, The Women's Art Association of Canada - Nancy Roberts McCulloch Scholarship, The David G. Powrie Scholarships and The Reinhold Scholarship Bursary. Ava began playing violin at the age of 11 in Tehran, Iran. She moved to the United States in summer of 2016 for he Masters studies in Violin Performance at the University of Maryland and was honored to be a recipient of their prestigious Smith Scholarship. She holds a Bachelor of Music in violin performance from the University of Tehran. Ava is a versatile solo and chamber musician and has performed various concerts in her country, as well as Europe, and the United States. She is a former violinist of the Arvand String Quartet, an active chamber ensemble that has appeared in several performances and recordings with the goal of bringing classical music into more accessible venues in Iran. As an Iranian woman with a deep passion for Persian culture and music, she has appeared in multiple concerts and projects performing works by Iranian composers. Recently she was awarded the David and Edith Sinaiko Frank fellowship for a Woman in the Arts for her project “Unheard Voices of Iran” in the United States. This project introduces five folk-inspired compositions by Iranian composers and it consists of two parts: live performances and professional recording of both premieres and commissioned pieces with the goal of fostering an understanding of two cultures seemingly impossibly divided, East to West, Ancient to Modern. The result of this project will be released as an album.
Kami Ghavi-Helm
Kami was born in France to a family of musicians. After studying violin in Paris with Alexandre Brussilovsky and graduating from pre-college with honors, he completed a Bachelor of Music in violin performance with Zygmund Kowalski at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels and graduated with honors while pursuing harmony classes under Jean-Baptiste Robin at the Versailles Conservatory. Kami then moved to the United States to continue his studies with Cyrus Forough at Carnegie Mellon University, where he got a Master of Music and an Advanced Musical Studies diploma. He recently completed his coursework requirements as a Doctorate of Musical Arts candidate at Rice University – The Shepherd School of Music in Cho-Liang Lin’s studio.
Kami was the recipient to the prestigious Anne and Charles Duncan Concertmaster Chair and the Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation scholarships and was also awarded Rice University’s Malcolm W. Perkins Teaching Fellowship.
As a performer, Kami has taken part in many group formations such as being a soloist with an orchestra, a tutti player or a chamber player. Performing extensively in Europe and America allowed him to extend his cultural knowledge and try many different approaches to music, such as improvisation and traditional music. His global experience has also fostered a strong command of Western classical repertoire ranging from the Baroque era to contemporary pieces.
Kami recently received an award from the French embassy for his idea to create a 90-minute lecture video on French music that draws a parallel between the music performed and other mediums such as poetry and visual arts by linking each musical piece to a poem or painting from the same era or on the same subject.
Kami is currently working on his doctoral thesis focusing on traditional Persian music, a subject of interest to him due to his origins. His paper will also include an original composition for solo violin, which will blend Persian and Western-music elements. This research will lead to a YouTube series on Persian music in an attempt to make the rich Persian culture more accessible to a worldwide audience.
He is currently collaborating with Houston-based French painter Agnes Bourely for the creation of an art exhibition blending pictorial and musical elements, for which he will compose and perform pieces influenced by her abstract paintings.
Kami is also very interested in the pedagogical aspect of music. He has been teaching violin and theory for the past ten years, privately and in partnership with many institutions. His pedagogical approach has been praised in several newsletters. He enjoys sharing his passion with others to help a new generation of musicians blossom.
Damon Taheri
Swedish-Persian violist Damon Taheri has been praised for his sensitive yet
energetic playing style and for being a multifaceted musician. He has worked
with some of the best orchestras in Scandinavia (Oslo Philharmonic, Royal
Stockholm Philharmonic and Gothenburg Symphony to name a few), and
participated in occasions such as the live broadcast Nobel Peace Prize Concert
and performances for the Royal Family of Norway.
Besides being a sought-after orchestral player, Damon is very passionate about
chamber music, especially the string quartet repertoire. He has been invited to
festivals such as Thy Chamber Music Festival in Denmark, Toronto Summer
Music in Canada, Sarasota Music Festival in Florida and Lake George Music
Festival in New York. During his studies in the US, he had the privilege to study
chamber music with founding members of the Juilliard String Quartet and
American String Quartet, and formed his own award-winning group, the
Chroma Quartet.
Damon has made solo and chamber music appearances at venues like
Stockholm’s Berwald Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall and Toronto’s Koerner Hall, and
has performed as a soloist with the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra and Arctic
Philharmonic Sinfonietta.
He enjoys playing a variety of different genres and has collaborated with
several artists outside of the classical music scene, including Frank Ocean, Ellie
Goulding, Janelle Monáe and Chick Corea. He is a member of Need Music - a
music production house and artist collective associated with some of Norway’s
leading instrumentalists, vocalists and DJ’s in the popular music scene.
During the pandemic, Damon was determined to make the best out of the
involuntarily free time he got, and focused on preparing for orchestral
auditions. This gave fruitful results, and he was offered a position as Principal
Viola of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. He also won a job with the Bergen
Philharmonic, and eventually realized that the Norwegian orchestra was a
better fit. He has now been a permanent member of the Bergen Philharmonic
since November 2021.
Damon has a Graduate Diploma in Viola Performance from the New England
Conservatory where he studied with Dimitri Murrath and Jessica Bodner. He
completed his Masters Degree at the Manhattan School of Music under the
tutelage of Karen Ritscher, and has a Bachelors Degree from the Norwegian
Academy of Music with Lars Anders Tomter and Ida Bryhn.
Tan Tiag Yi is a composer, violinist and arts administrator currently based in Singapore. He completed his Bachelor of Arts in Music with First Class Honours at the University of Oxford in 2021, where he studied composition with Professor Martyn Harry and violin with Caroline Balding. As a composer, his music seeks to explore the semiotic resonances of sounds and the ways time is experienced. Recent world premieres include the song cycle Between Ground and Sky for soprano and piano (2023) and Cross Sections for period wind ensemble Boxwood & Brass (2022). Apart from composing, Tiag Yi is the violinist of Duo Tarenna, a violin-viola duo based in Singapore championing uncharted repertoire, and Programmes Manager at Vox Camerata, a non-profit choral organization.
Wajdi Samir Abou Diab, an artistic visionary hailing from Lebanon, draws inspiration from his dual cultural background in Arabic Levantine and Western classical music. Born in Lebanon in 1991 and graduated from the Lebanese National Higher Conservatory of Music with diplomas in Piano and Music Composition, and he
is currently pursuing his Master's degree in Musicology of Tradition from Antonin University.
He has been recognized by the international music community through accolades at the 2022
Emerging Composer Competition by Rising Tide Press and the International Women Brass Conference, The Gaetano Giani Luporini prize, the American Viola Society's Gardner Music Composition Competition, the LIMF Composition Competition, and Cergy Pontoise Orchestra-studio, and his work has been selected for various Calls For Score. Wajdi composer’s residencies
include residencies at Cite Musicale De Metz and Cite Musicale De L'abbaye Aux Dames De Sainte.
Berfin Deniz (b. 2001) is a music teacher and an aspiring composer from Turkey who aims to create cultural bridges with out-of-the-box instrument in her music. She studied in the music education department of Ankara Music and Fine Arts University while taking composition classes from composers Erberk Eryılmaz, Alper Maral and Önder Özkoç. Her music was performed in the International Hisarlı Ahmet Symposium and Erberk Eryılmaz's Hoppa Project, and she strives to build a career as a composer and a music teacher.
Maria del Mar Ribas is a spanish cellist and composer living in Cologne. After finishing her cello studies in Spain, she moved to Germany to continue her career as a performer in both professional orchestras and chamber music ensembles. Among the most important auditoriums in which she has performed are the National Auditorium in Madrid, the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, Spain and the Berliner Philharmonie in Germany. She ist member of the Duo L'Arccord with the accordionist Jaroslav Irovic, with whom she recorded her first EP called City Lights, and founding member of the Cologne String Quartet. In 2022, she completed her Master's Degree in Composition at the International University of La Rioja, Spain, and received the award for her thesis with the premiere of one of her works performed by the Sax Ensemble at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid. In the same year, she releases her Solo Cello Works in a LP (Lines) and received a GEMA Scholarship to participate in the Female Composer Class in the 19_Soundtrack Cologne Festival in Germany. In 2023, her compositions were selected at the Du Vert a l'Infini Plucomp (France) and at the Mixtur Festival (Barcelona, Spain) to participate in masterclasses under the direction of Reza Vali and Reiko Yamada.
Atakan Turaç:
Turkish performer and composer Atakan Turaç (b.2000) has taken part in Turkey's leading concert halls with his saz performances and saz compositions with his goal for creativity and search for the uncommon.
During his music education, Turaç worked on Advanced Şelpe performance with Sinan Ayyıldız, advanced saz techniques and traditional saz repertoire with Oğuzhan Açıkgöz, Gökhan Ekim, Gökhan Karakaya and Namık Kemal İlbay, and composition studies with Erberk Eryılmaz and Önder Özkoç.
Turaç studied at Adana Çukurova Fine Arts High School, Ege University State Conservatory, and currently, is studying at Ankara Music and Fine Arts University.
Adam Shield is a composer and audio software developer hailing from New Orleans. Receiving his undergraduate and graduate degrees in music composition from Carnegie Mellon University, Adam spent six years studying under esteemed Professor Reza Vali, a founding member and educator at the PluComp Composition Summer Course. Adam now builds audio plugins for Antares, best known for the "Auto-Tune" plugins.
Adam's music is decisively complex, rich in textural variety and technical demand on the performers. His music often features electronics and novel notation techniques. He has released one album of concert music entitled "Sonic Eugenics" and another album of avant-garde electronic music called "Tethered to Nothing" as one-half of the duo "Uncertainty Principle". After a seven year hiatus from writing concert music, Adam is excited to return to composition to write a new string quartet for the Du Vert à L'infini music festival.
