Ensemble Intercontemporain
Den Sorte Diamant
10th June 20.00
Programme
Aya Yoshida: Drape
Dai Fujikura: Calling
Du Yun: Give me back my fingerprints
Nastaran Yazdani: Aayneh
Diana Soh: Extremely loud and incredibly close
Louis Aguirre: Oriki a Oggún
Riccardo Nillni: Double jeu
Bertrand Chavarria: Sauvage soleil (uropf.)
In this concert, four soloists from the legendary Ensemble intercontemporain perform a deeply varied program curated by singer/performer Ly Tran including a premiere of a new work by Bertrand Chavarria-Aldrete’s, which was commissioned specifically for the occasion by the Ensemble intercontemporain. Ranging from solo pieces for violin, cello, bassoon, and trombone to Chavarria-Aldrete’s quartet, this is a concert in which the audience faces the perfect opportunity to experience the full range of the musicianship at work in different musical contexts: From Nastaran Yazdani’s cello piece Aayneh (Persian for mirror), which is inspired by the many mirrors of her childhood home in Iran, and which utilizes the concept of mirroring as a compositional principle, to Louis Aguirre’s trombone piece Oriki a Oggún – a musical poem to the Orisha, or spirit, known as Ogun, the God of iron – which reflects the composer’s profound interest in indigenous Cuban Santeria religions.
Since its founding in 1976 by legendary French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, Ensemble intercontemporain has continuously been part of the vanguard of contemporary music. Through tightknit collaborations with some of the most forward-thinking composers of our time, their name has become synonym with musical innovation. In 2022, when the ensemble was awarded the prestigious Polar Music Prize, they were described by the jury as “the Stradivarius of modern music”.
The concert is presented in collaboration with the Odense Symphony Orchestra, with Ensemble Intercontemporain visiting Odense on June 14.
Venue
Den Sorte Diamant
Søren Kierkegaards Plads 1 1221 København K
> See MapArtists
Ensemble intercontemporain
An ensemble for contemporary music founded by composer and conductor Pierre Boulez in 1976. Under the artistic direction of French conductor Pierre Bleuse, the 31 soloist musicians work in close collaboration with composers, exploring instrumental techniques and developing projects that interweave music, dance, theater, film, video, and visual arts.
Ricardo Nillni (1960)
Argentinian/French composer. Since 1987, he’s been living in Paris, where he’s studied with Guy Reibel, Gérard Grisey, and Paul Méfano at the Paris Conservatoire. His music is characterized by its fluidity, its formal transparency and its use of particularly dense sonorities.
Du Yun (1977)
Chinese-born composer, performer, and vocalist living in New York. In 2017, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Music for her opera Angel's Bone. She works at the intersection of opera, orchestral music, theatre, cabaret, musical, oral tradition, public performances, electronics, visual arts, and noise.
Nastaran Yazdani (1987)
Iranian composer living in France. After studying piano, musical theory, and composition in Iran, she continued her studies at École Normale de Musique de Paris in the class of Éric Tanguy.
Louis Aguirre (1968)
Cuban composer residing in Denmark. Aguirre was educated as a composer, violinist, and conductor at the University of Arts in Havana, Cuba. His award-winning compositions have been labelled “music from hell” and “not for the faint of heart”, and a number of his works are inspired by the Cuban Santeria religion and its religious texts.
Dai Fujikura (1977)
London-based composer born in Osaka, Japan. He moved to the UK at fifteen and studied under Sir George Benjamin. His work has been performed by orchestras all over the world, he has collaborated with artists such as Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Sylvian, and he has received numerous awards, including the Ivor Novello Award and the Silver Lion from the Venice Biennale.
Aya Yoshida (1992)
Aya Yoshida is a composer born in Kobe, Japan, and residing in both in Denmark and The Netherlands. She began composing at the age of six under the guidance Mrs. Yasuko Osato. In 2014, she moved to Copenhagen and completed her postgraduate studies in composition with Niels Rosing Schow and Jeppe Just Christensen.
Diana Soh (1984)
Singaporean composer residing in Paris since 2011. Having written for a wide range of instrumentation – from chamber and orchestra to dance, film, vocal, multi-media, and site-specific works – she is currently interested in theatre and in the integration of technology into her compositional practice.
Éric-Maria Couturier (1972)
Cellist and soloist in Ensemble intercontemporain since 2002. He also regularly performs on the major international stages as a soloist and with the Talweg trio. He has created the music video games such as Plague Innocent Tale / Requiem, Dying Light, and Vampyre.
Marceau Lefèvre (1993)
Bassoonist and soloist in the Ensemble intercontemporain since 2023. Before then, he was the principal bassoon of the Brussels Philharmonic from 2017 to 2023. Lefèvre is a much sought-after chamber musician and soloist, regular invited by leading festivals and orchestras such as the the Orchestre national de France, the Hallé orchestra in Manchester, and many others.
Lucas Ounissi (1998)
French trombonist who has been a soloist in the Ensemble Intercontemporain since 2024. Notably, he performed Luciano Berio's Sequenza V at the Philharmonie de Paris in 2022.
Hae-Sun Kang (1961)
South-Corean violinist and soloist in Ensemble intercontemporain since 1994. She has premiered countless works, chief among them Pierre Boulez' Anthèmes II for violin and electronics which she recorded for Deutsche Grammophon She was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2014 and awarded the Grand Prix In Honorem by the Academy Charles Cros in 2022.
Bertrand Chavarria-Aldrete (1978)
Bertrand Chavarria-Aldrete is an artist with various working methods all originating in sound: performance, composition, poetry, theatre, plastic, and visual arts. Born in Lyon, he has studied in Mexico, France, Netherlands, and Portugal.
Ly Tran
Classically trained singer/performer who works in the field of contemporary music, often exploring themes both connected to own experiences and related to current matters. Her approach is characterised by openness and curiosity, and through her collaborations with composers she is continuingly seeking new ways of expression.
