Brussels – February 2020
The Ensemble Fractales performed seven pieces by European composers selected by the ECCO Artistic Committee. The composers were: Elis Hallik (Estonia), Charlotte Torres (Switzerland), Ryszard Lubieniecki (Poland), Matti Heininen (Finland), Mihailo Trandafilovski (North Macedonia), Johan Svensson (Sweden).
At first attracted by spectral music, Fractales has enlarge his repertory to explore the different styles of modern music : saturationism, concrete music, electronic music, new complexity, minimalism… Fractales is also supporting the international contemporary avant-guarde, working regularly with young composers. In this effort, the residency program BE Connect has been launched in 2017 by the ensemble. This annual residency is meant to bring composers from different countries of europe to meet around the ensemble, have the opportunity to experiment with the musicians in the middle of the creative process, and create new international artistic connections.
Download the programme here.
ENSEMBLE FRACTALES - BRUSSELS, 4TH FEBRUARY 2020
Elis Hallik (until 2018 Hallik) started her composition studies in the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre in 2008 with Helena Tulve and obtained there Master’s degree in 2015 under the tutelage of Helena Tulve and Toivo Tulev. During 2012–2013 she improved her skills in National Conservatory of Lyon (Conservatoire National Supérieur Musique et Danse de Lyon) as a student of Michele Tadini, Robert Pascal and Luca Antignani. She has participated in several master classes with teachers like Fabio Cifariello Ciardi, Luca Francesconi, Michelangelo Lupone, Yann Robin, Bernhard Gander, Tapio Tuomela, Jean Geoffroy, Ferdinando Nazzaro, Andrea Di Paolo and Klaus Lang. Hallik also have a Bachelor degree in Estonian philology from Tallinn University, where her additional speciality was audiovisual composition.
“I value everything that influences our ability to consciously embrace the present moment and keenly observe that which surrounds us – the various facets of silence and noise as well as microscopic events in sounds and the musical process because, paradoxically, it seems that the more the composition process is tied to the music itself and the musical reality, the more it allows the music to mirror the surrounding existence and its patterns through moments of insight.”
Elis Hallik’s works have been in the programmes of IRCAM’s Manifest festival, International Summer Academy (ISA) festival of the mdw, International Modern Music Festival Afekt, Estonian Music Days Festival, Autumn Festival of the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre. Her orchestral works have been performed by L’Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France (conductor Pierre-André Valade), Estonian National Symphony Orchestra (conductor Baldur Brönnimann), Tallinn Chamber Orchestra (conductor Atvars Lakstīgala) and Symphony Orchestra of the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre (conductor Toomas Vavilov).
In 2014, Impacts for cello and double bass achieved the first prize at the International Summer Academy (ISA) of the mdw (University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna) that brought along the new commission – To Become a Tree, premiered in 2016 at ISA of the mdw in Arnold Schönberg Centre, Vienna.
In 2017 Hallik represented Estonia at International Rostrum of Composers and her piece To Become a Tree was chosen among 11 recommended works by Rostrum jury. In 2017 Elis Hallik was selected among ten composers whose new orchestral piece (Fluchtpunkt) was played by L’Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France under the baton of Pierre-André Valade at the IRCAM’s Manifeste Festival.
Charlotte Torres first studied classical piano in which she subsequently won several international competitions (International Piano Competition of France, International Competition in Gaillard, first prize in the Radio France Competition).
She grew up at Annecy.
Her interest in improvisation and composition took her to Paris and later to Basel, where she completed a master’s degree in free improvisation at the Basel Music Academy in 2011.
Her teachers were Eliane Richepin, Roger Muraro, Adilia Alieva, Isabelle Duha and Claude Terranova.
She studied composition under Rainer Boesch, Alain Savouret and Philippe Manoury.
Actually, she’s studying for a Master degree in Composition with Xavier Dayer, at the Bern University of the Arts, HKB.
2015, she obtains in collaboration with Abril Padilla, the “Kunstvermittlungswettbewerbs, kult&co 2015”, Basel.
From 2010 to 2011 she was guest artist and musical director of the improvisation project of the master’s opera programme at the Zurich University oft he Arts (ZHdK).
From 2009 to 2010 she worked with the producer Jarg Pataki as an improviser and composer at the Theater am Neumarkt in Zurich.
She has already been invited to perform in numerous international festivals such as the Avignon Festival, the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, the Off Beat Jazz Festival Basel 2010.
Ryszard Lubieniecki (*1992) – composer, musicologist, instrumentalist, improviser and from Poland. He studied composition (1st degree, with prof. Bettina Skrzypczak) and accordion (1st and 2nd degree, with prof. Jerzy Kaszuba and dr Stanisław Miłek) at the Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz. Currently he is a PhD student of the Institute of Musicology at the University in Wrocław, where he studies late medieval music. Besides of the accordion he plays the portative organ.
His music was performed at Gaudeamus Muziekweek (Netherlands), 17th Annual Percussion Workshop Symposium Trstenice 2013 in Trstenice (Czech Republic), Musica Privata IV in Łódź, Słuchalnia in Toruń, Musica Polonica Nova and Musica Electronica Nova in Wrocław and International Summer Course SYNTHETIS in Radziejowice (Poland). Artist-in-residence for Musica Privata VI in 2018 in Łódź.
In 2014 he founded the contemporary music ensemble Layers with students from Bydgoszcz (Zofia Ilnicka – flute, Jakub Wosik – violin). With the trio he performed pieces by Alannah Marie Halay, Josue W. Amador and Piotr Bednarczyk.
In 2016 Lubieniecki started his first solo project – Amplified accordion project. New pieces have been written especially for him, including compositions by Dominik Karski, Alannah Marie Halay, Gilberto Agostinho and Mateusz Śmigasiewicz. On July 2019 his first solo CD “Seeds” was released by Nasze Nagrania.
As an improviser he is active in improvised music scene in Wrocław, playing in ensembles Lubieniecki/Rupniewski, Disquiet and Widzicie.
Matti Heininen is a Finnish composer. Born in Turku, Finland (1984), Heininen began his composition studies at Turku Conservatory and Turku University, later completing a Master’s Degree at the Sibelius Academy (Prof. Tapio Nevanlinna and Veli-Matti Puumala). In 2011 he studied at the Basel Music Academy under Georg Friedrich Haas, and in 2019 he completed a Konzertexamen in Hannover (Prof. Ming Tsao). In addition, he has attended several international master classes (Brian Ferneyhough, Beat Furrer, Mark Andre etc.).
In 2017 his first opera Rakkauden ateria [2016], initiated by Jorma Hynninen, was hailed by the press as ”challenging for audience and performers alike…”. The same year his work Spettrale [2017] was premiered by Trio SurPlus at the prestigious Sommerakademie Schloss Solitude founded by Chaya Czernowin. The work was described as an ”exceptional show of talent” by Der Neue Merker. Since then Spettrale has received numerous performances in Germany, latest in March 2019 by Ensemble KNM Berlin in their KNM Contemporaries, an international venue presenting uprising young composers.
A finalist in the Mauricio Kagel Competition 2016 and in Organum Society’s Organ Music Competition 2013, Heininen is constantly working on commissions for various ensembles and festivals. In 2019 four new works by Heininen were premiered in Germany and Finland, including uoma [2018] for large ensemble, and a new orchestral work towards the extraordinary adventures of Baron Munchausen [2019] for FRSO and Gustavo Gimeno, the latter descibed as “a highly original and ingeniously brilliant orchestral adventure” by Helsingin Sanomat.
Besides composing Heininen has performed as a pianist and percussionist, and worked as a composition teacher and music producer. At the moment he is writing a new work for Ensemble Etendis (Margit Kern, acc. and Olaf Tzschoppe, perc.) to be premiered at the Klangbrücken Festival in Hannover in April 2020.
Macedonian-born composer, violinist and educator Mihailo Trandafilovski’s latest album for Métier (2018) follows portrait CDs on Innova Recordings (2015) and LORELT (2011), featuring close collaborators Peter Sheppard Skærved, Neil Heyde, Roger Heaton, Roderick Chadwick, Odaline de la Martinez, Lontano, Kreutzer Quartet and the New London Chamber Choir. These enduring creative relationships have been at the centre of his work as a composer and have allowed him to explore and stretch instrumental techniques in idiomatic and often uncompromising ways.
His music has also been released on Clarinet Classics, SOCOM/Macedonian Radio-Television, Avalon Production (Macedonia) and Alliance of MSU Composers (USA). Recent performers include pianists Aaron Shorr, Ana Gaceva and Hajdi Elzeser, violinists Darragh Morgan, Mihkel Kerem and Noëlle–Anne Darbellay, cellists Sophie Harris and Yoni Gotlibovich, clarinettist Linda Merrick, as well as leading contemporary music groups Pierrot Lunaire and Reconsil ensembles (Austria), Ensemble Horizonte (Germany), Quatuor Diotima (France), Meitar Ensemble (Israel), Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble (Russia), mmm… (Japan), ConTempora (Macedonia) and the European Contemporary Composers Orchestra. His pieces have been performed and broadcast throughout Europe, America and Asia.
Mihailo studied at Michigan State University (BMus) and the Royal College of Music in London (MMus, DMus). His studies and research have been supported by the Open Society Institute, the Macedonian Ministries of Science and Culture and the British Government (with a Chevening scholarship); other awards include the United Music Publishers Prize for composition at the RCM and the Panče Pešev Award for best new work at the contemporary music festival Days of Macedonian Music.
He is a violinist in the Kreutzer Quartet, with whom he has performed and recorded extensively and held residencies at Tate St Ives, University of York and Goldsmiths College, among others; he has an avid interest in the application of new music to pedagogy, for which he was awarded his doctorate; and has led a number of shared projects among the arts promoting contemporary artistic creativity to a wider audience.
Since 2019, Mihailo’s music has been published by United Music Publishing.
Johan Svensson is a Swedish composer, exploring the field between acoustic and electronic music. His focus is on chamber music but his compositions range from solo pieces to works for symphony orchestra. His music often features alternative ways of producing sounds by
electronic means. Currently, his interest lies with electromechanical devices and the relationship possibilities between man and machine in live situations. He is the Artistic director and a founding member (as composer and performer) of the ensemble Mimitabu (http://mimitabu.se) and Artistic director of the Kalv festival (http://kalvfestival.se). His music has been performed at MATA festival in New York, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, ULTIMA Oslo Contemporary Music Festval, Internationale Ferienkurse für
Neue Musik in Darmstadt, Nordic Music Days, Tempo Reale in Florens, conDiT in Buenos Aires, Sound of Stockholm, iN festival in Seoul and SchauSchall in Graz, by Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, ensemble mosaik, Distractfold Ensemble,
Curious Chamber Players, Aksiom, Mimitabu, Ricciotti ensemble, Karin Hellqvist, Simone Beneventi and Marco Fusi among others.
– 2017 awarded the prize and residency Progetto Positano from Ernst von Siemens
Musikstiftung and ensemble mosaik.
– Developed the website http://pianoharmonics.com with the pianist Jonas Olsson and the
composer Martin Rane Bauck
He received his PhD in music, specializing in Composition (2016) at the National University of Music Bucharest (NUMB), under the supervision of Prof. Dr. DHC Dan Dediu. Also at the NUMB, he has graduated the Master in Orchestral Conducting (2015) with maestro Horia Andreescu, and the Master in Classical Composition (2013), under the guidance of maestro Dan Dediu. At 15 he was admitted at the “Katerina Maska” Conservatory in Athens, where he studied piano interpretation, and graduated with the arista pampsifi (άριστα παμψηφεί) distinction. Throughout his studies, he has obtained multiple national, as well as international scholarships, the latter in Germany, Netherlands, Estonia, Greece, Bulgaria.
He has conducted the National Symphonic Orchestra of the Teleradio-Moldova Company of Kishinev, The Orchestra and Big Band of “Carl von Ossietzky” University of Oldenburg in Germany, The Orchestra of The National University of Music in Bucharest, SonoMania Ensemble, HEART-CORE Choir, as well as OXIGEN Orchestra, which was founded by Vlad R. Baciu himself. With the occasion of the Olympic Games in Greece, he has prepared and conducted the AMADEUS Chamber Choir, and the concert was broadcasted by BBC. His works have been interpreted by young virtuosos and renowned ensembles, such as: Orchestra of the Bacău Philharmonic, Choir of the Craiova Philharmonic, Astra Choir, Profil Ensemble, SonoMania Ensemble, etc.
The work CARMIN, composed for chamber orchestra, has been included in the Archive of the National Radio. His composition THE CRY OF THE KOGAIONON, symphonic dirge for big band and symphonic orchestra, written to honor the memory of King Michael I of Romania, has been awarded the first prize at the “Carl von Ossietzky” Competition in Germany. He has composed the Hymn of The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies. He has participated in national and international competitions in composition, piano and painting, where he received numerous awards and prizes. Since 2010, he is the president of the HEART-CORE Cultural Association, which is involved in various cultural projects, with a special focus on promoting contemporary music.