Contemporary
Gaudeamus Music Week
Honorable Mention 2010
Giuliano Bracci
Italy , 1980
Da uno spazio bianco
Honorable Mention Gaudeamus Musicweek 2010
Giuliano Bracci studied composition at the Conservatory of Florence with Rosario Mirigliano and attended composition masterclasses with Helmut Lachenmann, Stefano Gervasoni, Salvatore Sciarrino, Joshua Fineberg, Quatuor Danel, and members of Klangforum Wien. He was shortlisted for the Gaudeamus Music Week 2009, and the Young Composer Meeting 2010 in Apeldoorn, where he was selected for a new piece for the Orgelpark in Amsterdam.
He collaborates with Stefano Cardi and musicians of the Freon Ensemble, and his music has been performed at festivals and institutes such as the Gaudeamus Music Week (Amsterdam), Cantiere Internazionale d'Arte di Montepulciano, Young Composer Meeting (Apeldoorn), Progetto Musica (Rome), Atlante Sonoro XXI (Rome), Goethe Institute (Rome), Compositori a Confronto (Reggio Emilia), MiXXer (Ferrara), and by ensembles including the Nieuw Ensemble, VocaalLab, Orkest de Erprijs, and Ensemble Fisarchi.
Giuliano Bracci also graduated cum laude in Philosophy at La Sapienza University (Rome) with a thesis on Giordano Bruno. He was the music director of a theatre company headed by Pippo Delbono and has performed in theatre shows in Italy, France, Belgium, Spain and Poland. He plays the guitar and the tuba and has taught at the Testaccio School of Music in Rome.
Da uno spazio bianco
Writing is bridging a gap between the intimacy of imagination and the concrete physical gestures of the performers. This bridge is made of signs, union of sound and thought. In Da uno spazio bianco I tried to observe intimate and small gestures from a great distance, often close to noise and silence. The challenge was to bring them to life in an orchestral context while preserving their light and transparency. Sound can contain memories and allusions and can also be just an acoustic event. Da uno spazio bianco attempts to locate itself at the boundary between these two opposite poles, in a grey area which is at the same time ambiguous and fertile. The title means ‘from a white space’ and can be intended as a provenance but also as an observation post.
Arthur Akshelyan
Armenia, 1984
Lichtfarben
Honorable Mention Gaudeamus Music Week 2010
Arthur Akshelyan studied composition with Vardan Adjemyan at the Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan from 2002 to 2007. Since 2008 he has been studying composition with the renowned composer Michael Jarrell, and electronic music with Luis Naon and Éric Daubresse at the Conservatoire of Geneva. Among others, he has also consulted Stefano Gerfasoni, Alexandros Markeas, and Henri Dutilleux.
His international awards include third prize at the Fifth International Jurgenson Competition for young composers in Moscow (2009), first prize for Kyrie Eleison at the Pre-Art International Composers Competition in Zurich (2007), first prize for Pray at the International Music Composition Competition Sayat Nova 2006 in Paris, first prize for Game at the G. Sarajev Competition in Armenia (2006), and First Prize for Tsover in the Lazarus Saryan vocal competition in Armenia (2004). He was also composer in residence at the Künstlerhaus Boswil.
His works have been performed by Ensemble Contrechamps, Ensemble Pre-art, Orchestre de Chambre de la Diaspora Arménienne, and the Armenian National Opera Orchestra. In 2009 he received a commission from the Armenia Foundation and the Armenian Church in Geneva. This year his piano works were published by Drazark Publishing (Glendale, CA).
Lichtfarben
The main idea of Lichtfarben was to include different materials and colored slides into wholeness. The composition ranges from ‘monodic’ thinking to dense ‘harmonism’, from calm mood to aggressive development, from spatial disposition to sharp rhythmic accents. These conjunctions are sometimes marked with contrasts. The soloist seems to show the main way to the orchestra. Although being prone to compose with intuition, I have tried to keep it in balance in the working process. The first four minutes of score already had been written for symphony orchestra, but it developed into a composition for chamber orchestra.
