Hèctor PARRA, guest composer

Hèctor Parra (Barcelona on 1976) is pensionnaire at the French Academy in Rome / Villa Medici 2021-22.

He has studied composition with David Padrós and Carles Guinovart at the Barcelona Conservatorium, with Jonathan Harvey, Brian Ferneyhough and Philippe Manoury at Ircam in Paris as well as with Michael Jarrell in the Haute École de Musique of Geneva. He has the Master in Arts of the Paris-VIII University with honours. He has been Professor of Electroacoustic Composition at the Conservatory of Music of Zaragoza, in Spain, and from 2013 to 2017 he has taught composition at Ircam-Centre Pompidou.

Premieres of his works have been performed by the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Klangforum Wien, Musikfabrik, Ensembe Recherche, the Arditti Quartet, the Gürzenich Orchester Köln, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Radio Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, Freiburger Barockorchester, Concerto Köln, Barcelona National Orchestra, Spain National Orchestra, among others. 

He received commissions from the French state, the Flemish Opera House, the Nürnberg Opera House, the Teatro Real Madrid, the Ircam-Centre Pompidou, the Berlin Academy of Arts, the Strasbourg Musica Festival, Musée du Louvre, WDR, SWR, Kölner Philharmonie, Mécénat Musical Société Générale and the Selmer Society, among others. His works are premiered at the international festivals of Lucerne, Warsaw Autumn, Wien Modern, Paris Philharmonie, Donaueschingen, Ircam Manifeste, Witten, Stuttgart Opera House, Bacelona Opera Liceu, Guggenheim NY, San Francisco Arts Festival, Vienna Konzerthaus, etc.

He has composed six operas and music theatre works in close collaboration with writers such as Marie NDiaye and Händl Klaus, that has been staged by Caixto Bieito, Rebecca Ringst, Vera Nemirova, Georges Lavaudant, Matthew Ritchie, Benjamin Schad and Robert Pienz at the Antwerp Opera House 2019, Berlin Staatsoper 2016, Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele 2015, Münchener Biennale 2014, Theater Freiburg 2014, Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord 2014, Festival Musica Strasbourg 2014, Sophiensaele Berlin and Basel Gare du Nord 2013, Gran Teatre del Liceu 2010, Luxemburg Philharmonie 2010, Kaaitheater Bruxelles 2010, Centre Pompidou 2009, Opera de Hoy 2007, Madrid. 

Since the world premiere of his latest opera Les Bienveillantes, based on Jonathan Littell's eponymous novel, on a libretto by Händl Klaus and staged by Calixto Bieito, the international press has never stopped greeting the event: "The most important opera of the 21st century" La Vanguardia, "A grandiose and challenging score" BRF Nachrichten, "A highly expressive music, masterfully orchestrated" Neue Zürcher Zeitung, "A colossal score, of great dramatic force" El Mundo, "Immensely powerful, extremely cleverly built" Deutschlandfunk, "A limit experience" Crescendo Magazine. His opera Das geopferte Leben, 2014 was nominated by the prestigious German magazine Opernwelt "one of the premieres of the year", and his but last opera, Wilde, has been qualified as "a masterpiece" by the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and the specialized magazine Das Opernglas.

Among his latest projects, Inscape, an immersive symphonic work inspired by the cosmological theories of French physicist Jean -Pierre Luminet.

Winner of the Ernst von Siemens Composers Prize 2011 and Catalan National Prize for Culture 2017, in 2009 he won the Tendències Prize of the Spanish newspaper El Mundo. In 2007 he won the Donald Aird Memorial Prize of San Francisco and in 2008 the Impuls/Klangforum Wien de Graz. In 2005 he was unanimously awarded the Tremplin Prize given by the Ensemble Intercontemporain. In 2002 he won the Prize of the National Institute for Performing Arts and Music of Spain. 

A monographic CD with his trios and chamber music performed by the ensemble Recherche has been published by the label KAIROS (2008). In 2010 KAIROS publishes his chamber opera Hypermusic Prologue, with a libretto of the renowned Harvard physicist Lisa Randall, played by the Ensemble Intercontemporain and Ircam, and in 2012 Col-legno and the Ernst von Siemens Foundation publishes his fourth monographic CD: Caressant l’Horizon. 

His works are published by Durand/Universal Music Publishing Classical, Paris, and Editorial Tritó (Barcelona).

Daniel D'ADAMO, guest composer

Born in Buenos Aires in 1966, Daniel D’Adamo began training as a musician in his home city. In 1992, he moved to France to study in the composition class of PhilippeManoury at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Lyon. In 1996/1997, he participated in Cursus (the IRCAM’s composition and computer music course), studying with TristanMurail and BrianFerneyhough. That same year, he took part in the International Forum of Young Composers in Montreal with Voices. In 1997, he was a resident of the Villa Médicis in Rome, where he undertook several composition projects and founded the Musica XXI Festival. He received a degree in musicology from the University of Paris in 2002, after research into the perception and learning of twelve-tone music at LEAD-CNRS, a cognitive psychology laboratory of the French National Center for Scientific Research in Dijon. In 2004, he founded Ensemble XXI, based in Dijon, and remained its artistic director until 2009.

In 2007, D’Adamo was a composer-in-residence at the Abbaye de Royaumont, where he premiered Madrigali, a series of eight pieces for three vocalists and baroque instrument ensemble. That same year, he received a commission from the French Ministry of Culture for a piece for clarinet and ensemble, Cerclé, composed for Ensemble L’Instant Donné. In 2009-2010, D’Adamo extended his residency at the Abbaye de Royaumont for a commission from the Ensemble Philidor for 17^th-century instruments. He composed a series of pieces in dialogue with Mozart’s Sérénade K.361 “Gran Partita.”

In 2011, he began work on a cycle of chamber music for ensemble and electronics. Titled The lips cycle, it comprises the pieces Lips, yourlips, Keepyourfuries, Airlié, and Traum Entelechiae, commissioned by the GMEM (Marseille), Césaré (Reims), and the French Ministry of Culture. He completed the cycle in 2017 with Fall - Love Letters fragments for mezzo-soprano, harp, and electronics, commissioned by the GRM.

In 2012, D’Adamo and Thierry Blondeau collaborated on the composition of a double string quartet with electronics, commissioned by the French Ministry of Culture for the Biennale Musiques en Scène de Lyon and recorded by the Béla Quartet on the Cuicatl label. That same year, he composed Tout Lieu Habité for orchestral ensemble, commissioned by the Contrechamps Ensemble (Geneva) and Quatuor à cordes n° 2 for the Tana Quartet, commissioned by Radio France.

In October 2014, his monodrama La haine de la musique for one actor (Lionel Monier), ensemble, and electronics, based on an adaptation of an essay by Pascal Quignard and directed by Christian Gangneron, premiered at the Festival Musica, performed by Ensemble TM+, conducted by Laurent Cuniot.

A Faraday cage for marimba and electronics, commissioned by Art Zoyd and Césare-CNCM, premiered in a performance by Laurent Mariusse during the IRCAM’s ManiFeste Festival in 2016. His first chamber opera, Kamchatka, with an original libretto by the Argentinian author Marcelo Figueras, premiered in 2016 at the Théâtre Colon in Buenos Aires. In 2017, he composed a series of five études for solo double base - Ombres portées - for Florentin Ginot, for Radio France’s broadcast Alla Breve. He is currently working on a new piece for string quintet - with two cellos - commissioned by the Béla Quartet, as well as Quartet N°3, a commission by the Ars Musica for the Tana Quartet.

Daniel D’Adamo is regularly performed around the world by different soloists and instrumental formations (including Court Circuit, Les Percussions de Strasbourg, Ensemble XXI, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, l’Instant Donné, Sillages, and Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain). He has been a guest of many festivals including ManiFeste, Présences, Agora, Musica, Biennale Musique en Scène de Lyon, Les Musiques de Marseille, and Voix Nouvelles in France; Inventionen in Germany; Nuova Consonanza, Roma-Europa, and Traiettorie in Italy; and Journées de Contrechamps and Archipel in Switzerland. His music was performed by the Spectra Ensemble (Belgium) during the 2014 World Music Days in Sydney, Australia.

D’Adamo has taught musical analysis at the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSMDP) and the Conservatoire de Tours (where he founded and coordinates the Atelier Contemporain, a cycle of courses for perfecting performance techniques for the contemporary repertoire) In 2007, he was a guest professor at the 18^th composition session of Voix Nouvelles de la Fondation Royaumont. He is currently a professor of composition at the Conservatoire de Strasbourg and the Haute École des Arts du Rhin. In 2017 he directed the Philippe Manoury Composition Academy at the Festival Musica in Strasbourg.

In 2006, he received the Boucourechliev Award, and in 2009, the SACEM’s Prix de Printempsfor Dream of Bells for the Maîtrise de Radio France choir. The recording of Plier / Déplier for string quartet and electronics won the Académie Charles Cros Prize.

Daniel D’Adamo was naturalized as an Italian citizen in 1993 and has lived in Paris since 2002.

His works are published by Éditions Gérard Billaudot and Le Chant du Monde.

BARCELONA MODERN ENSEMBLE, resident ensemble

Founded in 2004 and completely renewed since in 2013 the composer Demian Luna assumes his artistic direction.

The task of these last years is based mainly on contemporary music, current and newly created, and on the interpretation and subsequent dissemination of the young emerging values ​​of contemporary Spanish and world music, as well as the already established composers: Pierre Boulez, Helmut Lachenmann, Martin Matalon, Hèctor Parra, Raphaël Cendo, Kaija Saariaho, José Manuel López López, Jonathan Harvey, Benet Casablancas, Philippe Hurel, Alberto Posadas, Ramón Lazkano, Cristóbal Halfter, Gabriel Erkoreka, Luis De Pablo, etc.

Since 2014 is the resident ensemble of the Barcelona Modern International Composition Course, working on the work of guest composers Martin Matalon (2014/15), Héctor Parra (2015/16), Raphaël Cendo (2016/17), José Manuel López López (2017/18), Philippe Hurel (2018/19), Alberto Posadas (2019/20), Francesco Filidei / Oscar Bianchi (2020/21) and premiered 15 works by young composers every year, among them: Diego Jiménez Tamame, Frédéric Le Bel, Ariadna Alsina, Jeremías Iturra, Demian Rudel Rey, Pablo Andoni Gómez Olabarría, etc.

The ensemble has performed in prestigious halls and festivals, among which stand out: the Sampler Sèries cycle at the Barcelona Auditorium, the Tarragona Spring Festival, the Josep Carreras Auditorium in Vila-seca, the Palau Robert in Barcelona, ​​the 400 MNCARS Auditorium in Madrid, the Auditorium of CatalunyaCaixa in La Pedrera, Sala Mompou (SGAE / Barcelona), Spanien Modern Festival 2009 and 2011 in Vienna, Arnold Schönberg Center, Institute of North American Studies in Barcelona, ​​Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona, ​​Instituto Cervantes in Bremen, Aujord'hui Musiques Festival of Perpignan, National Theater of Catalonia, Museum of the University of Navarra, Institut Français-Barcelona, ​​Phonos Foundation, Mostra Sonora de Sueca, ME_MMIX Festival of Mallorca, Festival Turbulences Sonores de Montpellier, etc.

Formed by elite players specialized in contemporary repertoire, the ensemble evolves and advances at a steady pace, being already a reference of the country's current music.