Brussels – February 2017

Kari Beate Tandberg (b. 1958) was educated as a pianist and composer at the Norwegian Academy of Music.

In 2007, she received a PhD through the National Norwegian Artistic Research Programme. As a composer and research fellow she has, in particular, focused on how visual impressions and impulses can form the basis for musical expression.

The title of her research project is: ‘From moving images towards organized sound’. Her compositions are performed by The Norwegian Radio Symphony Orchestra, The Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Ernst, Cikada String Quartet and Nordic Voices. Her works have been presented in Japan, Germany and Scandinavia and have been broadcasted by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK). Kari Beate has received numerous grants, including the Norwegian Government Grant for composers (Arts Council Norway).

In 1995, she received the 1st prize in the international Fanny Mendelssohn competition. She has been represented at the Nordic Music Days (NMD) and at the Young Nordic Music (UNM).

Lehto started his composing career with smaller pieces for practical purposes as he was working with amateur wind orchestras and student flutists. After gaining a reputation within the field he widened his compositions and their musical level rose gradually towards a professional level. Nearly until this millennium Lehto composed almost exclusively for wind orchestras or flute.

Until the 1990’s, Lehto used the term self-taught to describe himself as a composer, but at the end of the decade he started studying composition and the studies have proceeded until the spring of 2016. After being accepted to the Society of Finnish Composers in 1999, Lehto took heart and made a composition for a symphony orchestra. The composition Promenade was premiered in 2000, which was a significant turn in his career. The piece became one of his most played works in Finland as well as abroad. In 2015, Lehto was chosen as one of the composers in the project “Sibelius’ followers” where fifteen large Finnish orchestras commissioned one work each from different composers.

Lehto has also taken part in different composition competitions. Besides the national prizes in Finland, Lehto has won two international competitions: “Ciutat de Betera” in 2009 and “Riga Windstream” in 2014. Based on these and a significant pedagogical flute repertoire, the regional arts council of Satakunta granted Lehto the art prize of Satakunta in 2014. Lehto’s works are published in Finland by Edition Musact and Music Finland and by Metropolismusic in Belgium.

Grégory d’Hoop graduated in 2009 from the Royal Conservatory of Brussels as recorder musician with great distinction in the class of Frederic de Roos. At the same time, he graduated from the Royal Conservatory of Mons with a bachelor in composition with great distinction in the class of Claude Ledoux.

During his studies, he had the opportunity to develop himself as a composer with Jean-Marie Rens (AKDT [B]), Thierry Blondeau (Musicalta [FR]) and Peter Swinnen (ARAM [FR]) and as a flutist with Jerome Minis (Farnières [B]), Sebastien Marq (Lisieux [FR]) and Gerd Lunenburg (Urbino [IT]). Attracted by free improvisation, he improved this field with Michel Massot and Pascal Contet. In 2007, he founded the trio Machine Arrière (www.machinearriere.org).

In 2004, he was awarded the Axion Classics competition (recorder and composition) and in 2008 he received the prize Andre Souris for promising young composers of the French community of Belgium. In 2011, he was awarded the Belgian foundation for Vocation’s prize.

Grégory d’Hoop continued his studies at the UdK in Berlin, where he graduated in 2011 ias recorder and in composition in 2012, each time with the greatest distinction. He currently lives and works in both Brussels and Berlin, where he continues his formation with Kirsten Reese (Meisterschüler).

Denis Bosse, born in Bordeaux in 1960, has lived and worked in Belgium since 1989. After having studied science, Bosse decided to focus on music and studied at the Conservatory of Bordeaux. Following his studies in France he completed his studies in composition at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels and at the Conservatory in Liège. In 1996, he was a composition trainee at the Ircam in Paris and from 1999 to 2000 he was an in-house composer at the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne de Montréal where he worked with Lorraine Vaillancourt. In 2002, Bosse was one of the laureates at the international composition competition Gustav Mahler in Austria.

Further to being a composer, Denis Bosse is also an assistant teacher in musical education at the Haute École Galilée in Brussels and he also teaches writing at the Royal Conservatory of Mons and composition at the CRR of Cergy Pontoise. In addition to this, he also makes teaching appearances at the Royal Conservatory of Liège in the class of Michel Fourgon.

Several of his compositions have a pedagogic character, such as «Le grand Crohot» written for 100 primary school children, «Caméléons» written for a junior orchestra and «Humpty Dumpty» written for 250 children at the CRR of Cergy Pontoise.

Denis Bosses’ works are performed in Belgium, France, Austria and Canada by ensembles, chamber ensembles or artists specialized in the creation of contemporary music such as Musiques Nouvelles, Quartz, Champ d’action, Soledad, Kaléidocollage, Proxima Centauri, Janus Ensemble Wien, Fragments, Hélix, Aleph, Nahandove, l’Autre Trio, Quatuor Danel, Quatuor Quadro, Trio Fibonacci, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne de Montréal, Musicatreize, Emmanuel Comté, Jean-Paul Dessy, Pierre Bartholomé and Lorraine Vaillancourt.

Geir Sundbø was born in Porsgrunn, Norway in 1967. Throughout his childhood and youth years he was very active in musical activities, as a performer and composer.

After finishing high school with music as a major, Sundbø studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA for one year. Back in Norway he started a five-year-study with Maj and Gunnar Sønstevold, two of Norway`s most highly regarded 20th century composers.

Sundbø works as a conductor as well as composer, and has received numerous scholarships and commissions, which enable him to work full-time with music. Sundbø is member of the Norwegian Society of Composers.

Thomas Van Haeperen is the musical director and head of programming of ensemble Sturm und Klang. With this ensemble he assured many world’s creations and Belgian premieres of contemporary works (such as d’Hoop, Fafchamps, Guerrero, Lenot, Leroux, Rens, Schnittke, Slinckx, Van Rossum, Widmann,…).

Besides music of today, he is passionate about the great classical repertoire, romantic and 20th century. He also led the National Orchestra of Belgium, the Ensemble Musiques Nouvelles, the Europa Chor Akademie, the Pauliner Kammerorchester, ensemble ON, ensemble Dextuor, the Orchestra and Choir of the Leipzig University and was assistant of Leo Hussain, guest conductor at La Monnaie.

Winner of the Belgian Vocation Foundation, Thomas Van Haeperen studied conducting in Germany, in Leipzig, with Wolfgang Unger. He also took masterclasses in Mainz with Sylvain Cambreling, to whom he says he owes the rigor and sensitivity in his interpretation of contemporary repertoire.

Mr Van Haeperen holds a degree in violin as well as Masters in philosophy; he is interested in all that unites music to thinking, memory and time. He is responsible for an orchestra class at the Academy of Arts of the City of Brussels and at the IMEP.