PluComp
The Du Vert À l'Infini Festival is thrilled to announce the call for participant composers for the upcoming 2024 PluComp Composition Summer Course.
This unique opportunity is designed to transform music composition by delving into non-Eurocentric perspectives, with a specific focus on the U.S., Syria, and Iran for this year's summer course.
About the Program:
PluComp, short for Pluralist Composition, stands as a pioneering composition summer course that takes a unique approach to music composition, shifting the focus from Eurocentric norms. In the upcoming summer course, we're honored to welcome the distinguished American composer Annika Socolofsky and the renowned Syrian composer Kareem Roustom as well as the resident composers Reza Vali and Shahab Pâranj from Iran. These eminent composers will lead participants through a transformative journey, exploring various facets of music composition, including melody, rhythm, polyphony, form, and instrumentation, all from rich American, Syrian, and Iranian perspectives.
Program Highlights:
Participant composers will engage in daily one-on-one composition lessons with each resident composer in addition to the seminars and discussions. This year’s seminar schedule includes:
Annika Socolofsky: The American vernacular music, especially the music of Dolly Parton, and the influence of this music on her works
Kareem Roustom: the Maqâm system of Syrian music and the influence of this system on his compositions.
Shâhab Pâranj: the rhythmic structure of the vocal repertoire of Persian traditional music.
Reza Vali: the structure of the Iranian Dasgâh-Maqâm system and the influence of this system on his music.
As the festival unfolds, resident musicians rehearse participant’s pieces leading to a live performance and recording during a concert as an integral part of the Du Vert À l'Infini Music Festival.
Lectures will be given in English.
How to apply:
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Fill out the application form
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Upload two scores of original works with contrasting instrumentation.
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Upload recordings of the same works. Live recordings are preferred, but MIDI recordings are accepted.
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Upload a CV/Resume
For further assistance, please email:
Info@duvertalinfini.com
Applying to PluComp is free.
Tuition for the duration of the festival will be $800. Room and board costs are covered by the festival.
Application deadline: Friday, December 15, 2023
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Composeres
Reza Vali
was born in Ghazvin, 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.
Annika Socolofsky is a composer and avant folk vocalist who explores corners and colors of the voice frequently deemed to be "untrained" and not "classical." Described as “unbearably moving” (Gramophone) and “just the right balance between edgy precision and freewheeling exuberance” (The Guardian), her music erupts from the embodied power of the human voice and is communicated through mediums ranging from orchestral and operatic works to unaccompanied folk ballads and unapologetically joyous Dolly Parton covers. Annika writes extensively for her own voice, including composing a growing repertoire of “feminist rager-lullabies” titled Don’t say a word, which serves to confront centuries of damaging lessons taught to young children by retelling old lullaby texts for a new, queer era. Annika has taken Don’t say a word on the road, performing with ensembles including Eighth Blackbird, New European Ensemble, Albany Symphony, Knoxville Symphony, Latitude 49, and Contemporaneous. Her follow-up feminist rager-lullaby song cycle in collaboration with ~Nois, titled I Tell You Me, was recognized by the Chicago Tribune as “grotesquely gorgeous” and was included in their “Chicago's Top 10 for classical music, opera and jazz that defined 2021.” Recordings of her music are available on New Amsterdam, Bright Shiny Things, Carrier, Naxos, and Innova record labels. Her research focuses on contemporary vocal music, using the music of Dolly Parton to create a pedagogical approach to composition that is inclusive of a wide range of vocal qualities, genres, and colors. She is Assistant Professor of Composition at the University of Colorado Boulder, and is the recipient of the 2021 Gaudeamus Award. She holds her PhD in Composition from Princeton University.
Syrian-American Kareem Roustom is a composer whose genre crossing collaborations include music commissioned by conductor Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the Kronos Quartet, as well as a recent collaboration with acclaimed British choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh. Roustom has been composer-in-residence at the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago, the Grand Teton Music Festival in Wyoming, and with the Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen in Germany and the Mannheim Philharmonic. A musically bi-lingual composer, Roustom is rooted in the music of the Arab near-east but his music often expresses beyond the confines of tradition. The themes of a number of his works often touch issues of those affected by war and instability. Roustom’s music has been performed by ensembles that include the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Estonian Chamber Orchestra Choir, Boston Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Boulez Ensemble, Oregon Symphony, Orchestre Symphonique de Mulhouse, The Crossing choir, Lorelei Ensemble, A Far Cry, and at renowned festivals and halls such as the BBC Proms, the Salzburg Festival, the Lucerne Festival, Carnegie
Hall, the Verbier Festival, the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, and others. Roustom has been composer-in-residence with the Grand Teton Music Festival, the Grant Park Music Festival, the Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen, and the Mannheim Philharmonic. Roustom has received commissions from the Malmö Symphony Orchestra (Sweden), the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Grand Teton Music Festival (2018 & 2023 seasons), the Grant Park Music Festival, the Daniel Barenboim
Stiftung (2013, 2015, & 2017), the Pierre Boulez Saal, the Royal Philharmonic Society & Sadler’s Wells Theatre (U.K.), A Far Cry & Lorelei Ensemble and others. Roustom’s music has also been recorded by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester (Berlin), and the Philharmonia Orchestra (London). Roustom’s awards include the Aaron Copland House award, the Sundance Film Music Fellowship and an Emmy nomination. Roustom plays the oud (Arab lute) and holds the position of Professor of the Practice at Tufts University’s Department of Music in Boston.
Shahab Paranj is an Iranian composer, instrumentalist, and educator. He is considered as one of the pioneers among his generation whose composition style integrates Persian and Western composition techniques. Paranj holds degrees in music composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (BM), the Manhattan School of Music (MM), and the University of California, Los Angeles(Ph.D.). 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 and Sopraduo. Paranj is a founder and artistic director of “du vert à l’infini” a contemporary music festival in the Franche Comte region in France. He has written an original score for the movie “Dressage,” the winner of the 2018
feature film in the Berlin Film Festival. Known as a tombak virtuoso, he has performed, recorded, and collaborated with
numerous highly respected musicians worldwide. He was a member of the Iran National TV & Radio Symphony Orchestra as a
cellist for eight years as well as the Shams Ensemble as a percussionist for fourteen years. Paranj’s research on the complex Rhythm of Persian Āvāzi style music was selected to be presented at AMS-SEM-SMT 2023 joint annual meeting in New Orleans. He has received formal recognition from the Mehr Humanitarian Society (2010) and The City and County of San Francisco (2011) for his contribution to introducing Persian music to the world.