masterpiece management

The winner of the contest for the positive Mahnkopf-Moment is

Thousand Tingles

Thousand Tingles was born 1987 in Bangkok and grew up in cities like San Francisco, Montpellier and Tblissi. After a trainig as a carpenter and a 3-year-circumnavigation, she founded the ASMR-start-up-business "FASMR" ("feminist ASMR") and the "feminist composer collective" in Tokyo, Japan. Her main interest in her artistic research is at the moment the digital collective.

The winner of the contest for the extraordinary ending is

Vitaliy Kyianytsia

Vitaliy Kyianytsia (b. in 1991) is a young Ukrainian composer and pianist. He has been born in the city of Kyiv, having started his musical education at the age of 6. As of this moment he is an Assistant Postgraduate at Kyiv National P. Tchaikovsky Music Academy. Vitaliy has received awards from the juries of several International competitions such as Orleans Piano Competition 2016 (Andre Boucourechliev Prize), Karl Filtch International Piano Competition 2009 (Sibiu, Romania), Anton Rubinstein Competition for perfomers-composers (St. Petersburg, Russia, 2009) in the nominations of both pianists and composers as well as the Stipend by the Wagner Society (in 2010) with the rights of attending Bayreuther Festspiele 2010 and of performing his own works. Vitaliy was Composer in Residence in Druskininkai (Lithuania, summer 2012). In 2015 Vitaliy attended Impuls Academy for New Music in Graz and had several lections and consultations with major contemporary composers and pianists. Vitaliy's music has been performed in Poland, Italy, Lithuania, Germany, Romania, Russia, France at the famous festivals and concert halls. He is a permanent participator of major Ukrainian Festivals and concerts as a composer and pianist. He is one of the founders of SED CONTRA Ensemble (Kyiv), being its pianist as well. In his capacity of a composer, Vitaliy has so far authored near 30 vocal and cameral-instrumental oeuvres, as well as Concert for Piano with Orchestra, which premiered in 2013 accompanied by National Stage-Symphonic Orchestra of Ukraine and Symphonietta for chamber orchestra. Vitaliy has participated in the Master Classes by Dmitry Kourliandsky, Carola Bauckholt, Sergey Newsky, Gerhard Stäbler, Martin Smolka, Hans Abrahamsen, Chaya Czernowin, Klaus Lang, Wolfgang Mitterer, Philippe Manoury, Simon Steen-Andersen, Jurgen Kruse (Ensemble Modern) and others. As a pianist he performs free jazz both solo and with ensembles and orchestra, also Vitaliy is specialized on New Improvisational Music and had a great experience in this genre. In 2015 Vitaliy was in residence "Gaude Polonia" in Warszawa, where with professor Zygmunt Krauze he improved his composition and piano technique and learned masterpieces of Polish Contemporary Music. To listen some recordings - https://soundcloud.com/vitaliy-kyianytsia

The second winner of the contest for the General Pause is

Miika Hyytiäinen

...as a storyteller that uses sounds and movement:

I started working with music theatre rather early. I have used my brother as a props in my pieces when I wasn't much older than three. Already then it was quite natural for me to express myself in the many fields of music theatre and this feature has been important part of my professional personality also. I communicate with different kinds of people and create with my music and performative ideas new collaborations. In these little moments the performers and viewers find new levels and intensities of communications. My experiments of colliding different worlds don't end where the contemporary music ends (if there even is such a place). I have a degree in Mathematics and also studies in musicology, aesthetics and literature as well as in composition, so the roots of my ideas tend to get really deep. I don't mind at all using the material of other composers, especially enjoying Baroque music and the music of second Viennese school, but sometimes the composer isn't needed at all. The composer is just a person who decides some of the rules, but the actual play is played by the other people.

...as composer of experimental music theatre:

Miika Hyytiäinen's music has been performed in most of the festivals and other important positions in Finland and Germany. It has also been heard in all Nordic countries, France, Japan, The Netherlands and England.

The versatile use of human voice and intimacy of the sound is typical for his music that combines different kinds of art forms, such as instrumental theatre, performance and theatre. Hyytiäinen graduated from Universität der Künste Berlin, where he studied composition and experimental music theatre with Daniel Ott. In 2014 he won with his piece ”You Are Here” the ”Opera and the Media of the Future” competition organized by Glyndebourne Opera House and the University of Sussex. The same year his (3D) opera "Aikainen" was performed in Berlin and at the Grimeborn Festival in London.

His chamber opera “Figure de la Terre” was premiered in April 2013 at Sophiensæle Berlin. His experimental music theatre piece ”Pierrot Lunaire und drei Schattenträume” has been performed in twoseasons in Finland with positive reviews and was also part of Tokyo Wonder Site Experimental Festival vol 8 in 2013. His opera “Omnivore” for mobile phones had its international premiere in June 2012 in collaboration with Finnish National Opera. Hyytiäinen has also numerous chamber music pieces. One of the most notable works is “Makabere Geschichten” that is at the moment repertoire of four trios in three countries. For 2016 he was chosen to Darmstadt Summer Academy for workshop “Music in the Expanded Field”. Since 2014 Hyytiäinen is working in Sibelius-Academy on Artistic PhD about collaboration of composers and singers. He works in International Biennale Platform of Munich as a composer.

And the winner of the contest for a Trond-Reinholdtsen-Intermezzo is... he himself!

Trond Reinholdtsen

For those who do not know him: This is his website for the Norwegian Opra (in english) and here is a short CV (in german).

Today we present the winner of the contest for the poetic-visionary middle section:

Zeynep Yildirim

Zeynep Yildirim was born in Istanbul in 1981. She studied composition and music theory with Özen Veziroglu und Ulvi Cemal Erkin at Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul. After her studies in Istanbul, she completed her postgraduate studies with Walter Zimmermann in Berlin and became a master-class student of Wolfgang Rihm in Karlsruhe 2012-2014.

Most of her works are for chamber ensembles, where she often uses elements derived from traditional turkish music.

Yildirim received commissions from Festivals e.g. ECLAT (Stuttgart) and Rainy Days (Luxembourg). Her works were performed by renowned artists e.g. musikFabrik, Ashot Sarkissjan (Arditti Quartet), Ensemble Dal Niente, Ensemble Garage and the Thin Edge New Music Collective (Canada). She has been rewarded several prizes and scholarships, the Schneider-Schott-Prize or scholarships from International Summer Courses Darmstadt as well as from the Aribert-Reimann-Foudation. In 2015, she was selected for a residence in the Künstlerhaus Edenkoben. Her works have been performed in Europe, USA, Canada, Australia and Japan and were broadcasted by several radio stations e.g. WDR, SWR, Deutschlandradio Kultur and ORF.

Zeynep Yildirim lives as a freelance artist in Heidelberg, Germany.

There are 2 winners of the competition for the General pause - here is the first:

Lea Lucien Danzeisen

Lea (*1989) Lucien (*2015) Danzeisen studied with Luigi Nono, Vito Accondi and Giangiacomo Feltrinelli (Prova d'Orchestra). She*he tries to keep the world as real by constantly describing it, but longs - like all youth - for the holy deed.

The winner of the contest for one tone is

Johannes P. Krüger

Johannes P. Krüger is a video and performance artist. He studied sociology and Applied Theatre Studies in Gießen. His works are a plea for the aesthetics of integrativity and fluctuation. He is a member of the performance collective T-R-A-N-Z, which higlights questions of gender, interdisciplinarity and the role of the hipster beard for cultural identity. Krüger lives in Berlin and Oslo.

The winner of the contest for the long intersection is

Martin Piontek

Martin Piontek was born 1985 in Lodz, Poland. He emigrated in the USA with his parents in 1989 and grew up in Chicago. He studied composition with Nils Vigeland at Manhattan School of Music, New York and continuied his studies at Stanford University with Brian Ferneyhough.

His works have been performed by many well-known Ensembles like Ensemble Moto Perpetuo or International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). In 2010 he received a scholarship of the Darmstädter Ferienkurse for his work Crossing Lines which has been performed by Ensemble Soundinitiave (France). Piontek is especially interested in the connection between music and mathematics, which play a key role for the structure of his compositions.

Piontek teaches theory and analysis of contemporary music at Peoria College, Illinois. He is a specialist in Pitch Class Set Theory.

The winner of the contest for the differentiated but bruitistic soundscape is

Asta Hyvärinen

Finnish composer Asta Hyvärinen (b. 1963) has studied musicology, music theory and percussion in Helsinki and Turku. She has studied composition with many leading Finnish composers. She has also attended composition master classes in Germany, in Finland and in France under guidance of Jukka Tiensuu, Adriana Hölzky, Helmut Lachenmann and Brian Ferneyhough, among many others.

Asta Hyvärinen's official list of work consist nowadays more than 80 compositions.

She has descripted her style with the term “whole tonality” that means of equality of any kind of sounding material (chromatic; micro tonal; noises & any kind of unpitched sounds). She has also used the term “surrealist-cubism”. This means that the structures are based on the surrealistic (subconscious) process and the sonic details appearance as cubistic.

Hyvärinen’s works have been awarded and noticed in several competitions (International Rostrum of Composers, the 2nd International Composers Forum, PanAccordion and Newtune Competition etc) and she has received numerous grants from foundations such as The Finnish Cultural Foundation and The National Council for Music (Artist Grant for the Years 2001, 2005, 2007-2008, 2011 and 2013-2015).

Asta Hyvärinen’s music has performed and broadcasted in Europe, Asia, Canada and America. Her composition concerts have been held in Helsinki, 2011 and 2004 and at Järvenpää Sibelius Weeks Festival, 2002.

After the short intersection, there follows the negative Mahnkopf moment in the new masterpiece 2016. The winner of this contest is

Martin Müller-Freytag

Martin Müller-Freytag was born 1994 in Schwarzach (Donau). He is studying composition (Bachelor) with Prof. Martin Schüttler in Stuttgart. He took courses with famous composers, e.g. Brian Ferneyhough and Jennifer Walshe. His works have been performed by Decoder Ensemble and JACK Quartet (within Darmstädter Ferienkurse). He was awarded several prizes at "Jugend komponiert" as composer, but he also won prizes at "Jugend musiziert" as instrumentalist (recorder/pno). In his compositions, he has a special interest towards electronics, installation, conceptual music and performance.

And the winner of our second contest for the short intersection is

Bajar Alexandrov

Bajar Alexandrov was born 1968 in Perm.

He studied violin as well as composition at the Conservatory of his hometown (under the guidance of Nikolaj Melnikov and Sergej Sobolev).

Besides his work as a music theory teacher at Perm Conservatory, Bajar Alexandrov has written several compositions for orchestra and soloists, e.g. 4 violin concertos, a piano concerto and a chamber symphony. His current works comprise an oratory "The matyr of St. Catherine" and a string octet.

Today we present the winner of the first contest:

Beginning - Julia Schönekäs

Julia Schönekäs (*1979) studied music education and composition at HfM Cologne with Krzysztof Meyer and York Höller. She took part in Darmstädter Ferienkurse and in masterclasses held by John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Currently she is working as a music teacher in Detmold.

Her special interest is the mediation of New Music. She wrote several  essays on composition pedagogy which were published in periodicals like Musik & Bildung as well as MusikTexte. Julia Schönekäs is vice chairman of the Association for New Music in Ostwestfalen-Lippe.