Etchings 2011 Guest Composers
Stefano Gervasoni
Stefano Gervasoni was born in Bergamo in 1962. He began to study composition in 1980 on the advice of Luigi Nono: this meeting, as well as those with Brian Ferneyhough, Peter Eötvös and Helmut Lachenmann, were to prove decisive for his career.
After attending the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan, Gervasoni completed his studies in Hungary with György Ligeti in 1990, and then in Paris, where in 1992 he followed the course in Composition and Computer Music organized by Ircam. The first three years of his stay in France provided the foundations for an international career that led him to be “pensionnaire” at Villa Medici from 1995-1996.
He has become one of the most important Italian composers on the contemporary scene and has received commissions from the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the WDR in Cologne, the SWF Baden-Baden, the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, the Festival d’Automne in Paris, Radio France, IRCAM, the Casa da Musica in Porto, the Festival Archipel in Geneva, the Maerzmusik in Berlin, Ars Musica in Brussels and Suntory Hall in Tokyo.
His compositions – including chamber and vocal music, concertos, and works for orchestra and for ensemble – were published by Ricordi from 1987 and, since 2000, by Edizioni Suvini Zerboni – Sugarmusic SpA. A monographic CD entitled “Antiterra”, featuring “An”, “Animato”, “Antiterra”, “Least Bee”, “Godspell” and “Epicadenza”, was recently released in France on the Aeon label and displays «a musical world of great wealth, subtlety and refinement, both expressive and introspective, that immediately captures our attention» (Philippe Albèra).
His work has won numerous awards and has earned him grants from the Fondation des Treilles in Paris and the DAAD in Berlin. He has also taken part in the Junger Komponisten Forum in Cologne, the Klangforum Seminar in Vienna and has lectured at the summer courses in Darmstadt, the Fondation Royaumont in Paris, the Toho University in Tokyo, the International Festival of Campos do Jordão in Brazil, the Shangai Conservatory, the Columbia University (New York) and the Harvard University (Boston).
Stefano Gervasoni teaches composition at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Paris and is resident composer at the Contemporary Arts Centre of the Domaine de Kerguéhennec (Brittany) until 2011.
Lee Hyla
Lee Hyla was born in Niagara Falls, New York, and grew up in Greencastle, Indiana. He studied composition with Malcolm Peyton at the New England Conservatory, and at S.U.N.Y. Stony Brook with David Lewin. His musical background also includes extensive experience as a pianist in new music, rock, and free improvisation. He is writing or has written for numerous performers including the Midori/ Vadim Repin commissioning project, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Kronos Quartet (with Allen Ginsberg), The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Speculum Musicae, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Lydian String Quartet, Triple Helix, the Firebird Ensemble Tim Smith, Tim Berne, Rhonda Rider, Stephen Drury, Mia Chung, Judith Gordon, Mary Nessinger, and Boston Musica Viva.
He has received commissions from the Koussevitzky, Fromm, Barlow, and Naumburg Foundations, the Mary Flagler Carey Charitable Trust, Concert Artist’s Guild, The Argosy Foundation, three commissions from Chamber Music America and four Meet the Composer commissions. In 2007-8 he was composer-in-residence with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra as part of the Meet the Composer Music Alive Residency program. He has also been the recipient of the Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, a Guggenheim fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the Goddard Lieberson Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Rome Prize.
His music has been recorded on Nonesuch, New World, Avant, Tzadik, and C.R.I., and is published exclusively by Carl Fischer. In May, 2008, a cd of his work, containing Lives of the Saints and At Suma Beach performed by Mary Nessinger and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gil Rose conductor, was released on BMOP Sound. In the Fall of 2004 he was Resident Composer at the American Academy in Rome. He was chairman of the composition department at the New England Conservatory, where he taught from 1992 to 2007. He currently lives in Chicago where, in September, 2007 he began an appointment as the Wyatt Chair in Music Composition at Northwestern University.
