Acanthes 2003

11 to 25 July, 2003,
Chartreuse de Villeneuve-lez-Avignon - France

Acanthes has been pursuing its educational mission for more than a quarter of a century; this year from 11 to 25 July the Chartreuse of Villeneuve-lez-Avignon will again play host to young composers coming to enrich their knowledge and experience of musical creation.

The Centre Acanthes revolves around composition and interpretation workshops. Here young composers are given the opportunity to hear how their works sound in full-scale performances, and interpreters to develop the techniques involved in playing contemporary music.

This year the Centre has invited three guest composers of international renown, who will work with the different workshops and will also speak about their own works. They are Klaus Huber from Switzerland (who taught at Acanthes in 1993), Gilbert Amy from France (at Acanthes in 1984) and Toshio Hosokawa from Japan. The instrumental workshops will benefit from the teaching of the pianist Claude Helffer, who will also teach analysis, the flautist Mario Caroli, the cellist Walter Grimmer, and the accordionist Teodoro Anzellotti.

Finally, the presence for the first time at Acanthes of Toshio Hosokawa provides the inspiration for a Japanese theme to this year’s Centre. There will be opportunities to explore traditional Japanese music, with examples, and also to examine the combination of modernity and a rediscovery of traditional sonorities which typifies music in most Asian countries today.
 
COMPOSERS
  



©Guy Vivien

 Gilbert Amy was born in 1936 in Paris. After winning first prize in the Concours général de philosophie he studied with Olivier Messiaen and Darius Milhaud at the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris. His meeting with Pierre Boulez in 1957 was decisive. He received a commission from Boulez one year later for Mouvements, first performed in Darmstadt by the Ensemble du Domaine Musical. Gilbert Amy succeeded Pierre Boulez as concert director of the Domaine Musical, a post he held from 1967 to 1973. During the same period he had a parallel career as a conductor in Europe and Argentina. He was appointed musical advisor at O.R.T.F. in 1973 and then in 1976 he founded the Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, of which he remained the principal conductor and artistic director until 1981. In 1984 he was appointed director of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Lyon. His talents as a composer achieved recognition with the award of the Grand Prix National de la Musique in 1979, the Grand Prix de la Sacem in 1983, the Grand Prix Musical de la Ville de Paris in 1986, the Prix du Président de la République de l’Académie Charles Cros in 1987 and the Prix de la Critique Dramatique et Musicale for his Missa cum Jubilo in 1988.
Toshio Hosokawa was born in Tokyo in 1955. He first studied piano and composition in Tokyo, then in 1976 he moved to Berlin to study composition with Isang Yun at the Hochschule der Künste. Between 1983 and 1986 he attended Klaus Huber and Brian Ferneyhough’s classes at the Musikhochschule in Freiburg. His works have won numerous prizes: first prize in the Valentino Bucchi composition competition (Rome, 1980), first prize in the composition competition organised for the centenary of the Berlin Philharmonic, the Arion Music Prize (1984), the La Jeune Génération en Europe prize (1985), the Kyoto prize (1988), the Osaka prize (1989) etc. Toshio Hosokawa has been a guest of numerous contemporary music festivals. His first opera, Vision of Lear, commissioned by the city of Munich, was first performed during the 1998 Munich Biennale. From 1989 to 1998 he directed the Akiyoshidai seminar and festival in the south of Japan.



©Guy Vivien


©Guy Vivien

 

 Klaus Huber was born in Bern in 1924. He studied with Willy Burkhard at the Zurich Conservatory and then with Boris Blacher at the Musikhochschule in Berlin. He teaches violin at the Zurich Conservatory, history of music and literature at Lucerne Conservatory and composition at the l’Académie de Musique in Basle. In 1969 he set up the international composition seminar in Boswil, Switzerland. From 1973 to 1990 he was in charge of composition classes at the Institute for New Music at the Musikhochschule in Freiburg. He is a guest teacher at many major musical institutions in Europe, America and Japan. He has received numerous prizes including the Beethoven Prize for Tenebrae (Bonn, 1970), the Prize of Arts of the City of Basle, the Prize Reinhold-Schneider of the City of Fribourg-en-Brisgau and the Prize Italia for Cantiones de Circulo Gyrante. One of his most recent works in the opera Schwarzerde, first performed in Basle in November 2001. A l’âme de descendre de sa monture, for cello, baritone, countertenor et thirty-seven instruments received its premiere in October 2002 in Donaueschigen. Klaus Huber lives in Bremen (Germany) and Panicale (Italy).

 
PERFORMERS
  

Teodoro Anzellotti was born in Candela in Italy. He studied accordion at the Karlsruhe and Trossingen Musikhochschule in Germany. In 1985 he won First Prize in the Hugo Herrmann international competition. As well as performing the classical and especially the baroque repertoire, he has also premiered works by Luciano Berio (Sequenza XIII), James Dillon, Vinko Globokar, Heinz Holliger, Mauricio Kagel, György Kurtág, Wolfgang Rihm, Salvatore Sciarrino and Karlheinz Stockhausen. He is an international soloist and has been invited to perform with a number of major orchestras. He has taught accordion and chamber music at the Berne-Biel Musikhochschule since 1987 and at Darmstadt since 1992. He gives masterclasses in a number of countries.
Mario Caroli was born in Italy in 1974. He studied the flute with Annamaria Morini and was particularly influenced by Manuela Wiesler. He also has a degree in Philosophy, and wrote his dissertation on Nietsche’s Der Antichrist. He attended classes at Darmstadt and was awarded the Kranichsteiner prize at the age of 22. This marked the start of a brilliant international career, in the course of which he has worked with famous musicians including Pierre Boulez, Peter Eötvös, Heinz Holliger, Emilio Pomarico and Oswald Sallaberger, and perfomed in major concert halls. He is extremely active in the world of contemporary music, working with composers like Ivan Fedele, Stefano Gervasoni, Toshio Hosokawa, György Kurtág, Salvatore Sciarrino and Joji Yuasa, who have all dedicated works to him. Since 2000 he has been the flutist of the Acroche Note Ensemble; he teaches at the Conservatoire National de Région in Strasbourg and teaches a masterclass each year in Akiyoshidai in Japan. He lives in Strasbourg.

Walter Grimmer, was born in Zurich in 1939 and received his musical education at Zurich Conservatory. After working with Maurice Gendron and completing his studies with Pablo Casals and Enrico Mainardi, he was appointed solo cellist in the Bern Symphony Orchestra by Paul Klecki in 1966. He was soloist with the Camerata de Berne until 1971, touring with the ensemble on many occasions. He was also part of the Quatuor of Berne. As a performer receptive to contemporary music he has given many first performances, in particular works by Helmut Lachenmann, Heinz Holliger, Brian Ferneyhough, Klaus Huber, Pascal Dusapin and Isang Yung. In October 2002 he gave the first performances of Klaus Huber’s A l’âme de descendre de sa monture, for cello, baritone, countertenor and thirty-seven instruments in Donaueschingen and Paris. Walter Grimmer taught cello at Berne Conservatory from 1974 to 1986 and Zurich Conservatory from 1986 to 2002, where he also held a chamber music class. He regularly invited to teach at Acanthes. He has recorded all of Mozart and Schubert’s works for duo and trio, and the Brahms sonatas. He has edited Maurice Gendron’s artistic legacy, L’Art du violoncelle, published by Schott.

 

Claude Helffer, was born in Paris in 1922. He started playing the piano when he was five years old. Robert Casadesus took him as his pupil. When he left the Ecole Polytechnique in 1947 he chose music as his career and studied harmony and counterpoint with René Leibowitz. He took part in the work of the Domaine Musical from 1954 and gave the first performances of a number of pieces dedicated to him such as Erikhthon by Iannis Xenakis (1974), André Boucourechliev’s Concerto (1975), Stances by Betsy Jolas (1978), Luis de Pablo’s 1st Concerto (1980), Envoi by Gilles Tremblay (1982), Modifications by Michael Jarrell (1983). He has recorded many pieces including all the music for piano by Ravel, Debussy and Schoenberg, Bartok’s Mikrokosmos, six Beethoven sonatas as well as Barraqué’s Sonata and and the three Boulez sonatas. Claude Helffer is well known as a teacher and since 1985 he has taught for three weeks every year at the Salzburg Mozarteum. Since 1976 he has been inviting students from all over the world to meet at his home once a month for classes in interpretation.
Claude Helffer has come to Acanthes often and is also vice-president of the ACDA association.

 


©Guy Vivien


©Guy Vivien

Rachid Safir
Of all his various musical activities, it is the interpretation of vocal music for soloists of all periods which is dearest to Rachid Safir’s heart. He is a singer who works with groups ranging from the Groupe Vocal de France to the Studio der Frühen Musik and the Clemencic Consort. In 1978 he founded the ensemble A Sei Voci with which he sang for over ten years. He has made a number of highly acclaimed recordings. He has been a choirmaster since 1970, and in 1998 he founded the ensemble les jeunes solistes. He has taught at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Lyon. He was artistic director for the Centre d'Art Polyphonique de Paris Ile-de-France from 1989 to 1997. Since September 1997 he has taught at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris.

 

The ensemble les jeunes solistes has a repertoire of vocal polyphony ranging from the Renaissance to contemporary works. It is composed of professional singers of great stylistic versatility and varying in number from four to twenty. Sometimes instrumentalists are added for specific works. The guiding principle is one voice per part which permits a modelled, precise interpretation. Les jeunes solistes has recorded and performed numerous early and contemporary works in France, for example at the Festival d’Ambronay and the Festival d’Automne) and abroad. They have given many first performances, for example the Lamentationes Sacrae et Profanae ad Responsoria Gesualdi by Klaus Huber. The ensemble have also been regular contributors to Klaus Huber since 1990. Since January 2001 les jeunes solistes have been the resident ensemble at the Royaumont Foundation.

 
Présences Contemporaines is an instrumental ensemble of variable composition set up in 1998 in Aix-en-Provence. Its central figure is Jean-Pierre Caens. The ensemble is interested in different types of contemporary musical expression and concentrates essentially on contemporary works. Présences Contemporaines has given a number of world premieres, of works by Luis de Pablo, Henry Fourès, François Rossé, Edith Lejet, Jacques Lenot and others. The ensemble also devotes part of its time to teaching, particularly of young instrumentalists.

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Acanthes 2003 - teaching team - concerts - practical informations - suggested works for instrumental workshops - paticipants 2003 - application form - partnership