Chantal Auber
(born in Paris), pianist, composer. Entry at the age of 11 at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris, she won first prizes in Chamber Music and Piano and the Gabriel Fauré prize. These prizes were handed over by the Minister of Culture on the occasion of her first concert. Student of prestigious Masters: pianist and composer Yves Nat, for the piano and Nelly and Pierre Pasquier, violists of the famous Trio Pasquier, for the Chamber Music, she developed her musical culture in various disciplines under the direction of Norbert Dufourcq for Music History, Jeanne Guionie of the Paris Opera for voice, Marcel Dupré for organ, Yvonne Desportes, Pierre Lantier, Paule Mauric, Pierre Petit, all Grand Prix de Rome for composition and Robert Veyron-Lacroix for harpsichord. Her career gave her the opportunity of enriching encounters and musical collaborations with Francis Poulenc, Noël Gallon, Jacques Boisgallais, Marcel Dupré, Samson François, Eliane Richepin, Lily Laskine, Maurice Duruflé, Marie-Madeleine Chevalier, Nadia Tagrine, Georges Prêtre, Jean Claude Casadesus, France Clidat, Bruno Pasquier, Régis Pasquier, Laurent Petit-Girard, Bertile Huguet-Fournier, Roger André. Associated with the creation and the recording of works for radio, she created les 12 Tons of Pierre Gabaye with the "Percussions de Strasbourg" and generic music la Selette for TV of Philippe Bouvard. She participated in the television program of Micheline Sandrel with Alain Decaux. As a pianist, she has played classic of chamber music during many concerts. Her works for piano, organ, chamber music, vocal and orchestral are listed in concert programs and competitions in France and in many foreign countries.
Publishers: Armiane, Combre, Delrieu, Durand, Leduc, Lemoine, Hydrangea
Contact: www.auber.com
Chefa Alonso
(born 1955 in Coruña, Spain) composer and soprano sax performer. Since 1995 she has been dedicated to teaching improvised music and composing and performing music for theater and dance as well as composing for her own group Akafree. She is co-founder of the Musicalibre collective, which organizes the annual Hurta Cordel International Improvisation Festival. She combines music and medicine education in an improvisation project aimed at the physically and mentally disabled, with whom she has worked since 1999. She also has stable improvisation groups as Blanca Doble, a duo with the poet Victor M. Díez, and Sin Red, interdisciplinary poetry, dance and improvised music proposed, and has played with a variety of musicians on the international scene as Vanessa Mackness or Phil Wachsman. She is Doctor of free improvisation and composition (Brunel University, London, 2007) and has published the book "Improvisación libre. La composición en movimiento” (2008. Editorial Dos Acordes). In the educational field, she teaches improvisation and conductes improvisers’ orchestras. She conducts FOCO (orchestra) and LIO (London Improvisers Orchestra). Belonged for four years to OMEGA (Orquesta de Música Espontánea de Galicia), and founded a band of improvisers in Andalucia, Entenguerengue, which she also conducted in the first stage. Recently she formed Carnival Orchestra, an orchestra that combines improvised music, with and without conducting, free jazz, poetry, electronic music, dance and music (original) for the circus.
Selected works: Video Compositions: Orillas. Barbara Meyer, Londres, 2007; Ruido Blanco. Barbara Meyer y Raquel Sánchez, Madrid, 2008. Compositions for theater and dance: Historias Peregrinas, Teatro do Noroeste, 2010; Amazonas. Instituto Valenciano de la Música, 2009; 69, Arela das Artes, 2009; Bailar el agua, 2005. Danza para niños; Ensayo, Teatro do Noroeste, 2004; Dos damas de Ferrol, Teatro do Noroeste, 2002; Alta Comedia, Teatro do Noroeste, 2001; A cacatúa verde, Centro Dramático Gallego, 2001. Compositions for improvising musicians: Five colours in seven minutes, 2004; Calypso oriental, 2004; Music is not necessary, 2004; Three games for seven improvisers, 2005; Collage, 2005; Their faces were blue, 2005; A beginning, a middle and an ending, 2005; Two in three, 2006.
Recordings: Uz: tres tubos, with Miguel Bestard y Marcos Monge. Clamshell Records, 2012; El azar fiable, with Albert Kaul (piano), 2011; Aguacero, Sin Red (Víctor M. Diez, Cova Villegas and Ildefonso Rodríguez), 2010; El ojo del huracán, 2010; John Russel, dúo. Emanem, London, 2007; Freedom of the city 2006, Emanem, London; Sin Red 2005, Sound Deluxe Producciones; Freedom of the city 2005, with the LIO (London Improvisers Orchestra)
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Christina Athinodorou
(born in 1981, in Cyprus), conductor, composer. She studied the piano with Blagovesta Tsankova at the Pafos Academy of Fine Arts and theory of music with Stavros Tsartalis. Studying with Julian Philips under whom she specialized in composition. She graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London obtaining both BMus and Mmus. For shorter periods she studied the piano with the Russian virtuoso Nikita Fitenko at the University of North Texas and took composition lessons from Robert Pascal at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique et Danse de Lyon in France. Her list of works includes various symphonic, chamber, vocal and electronic compositions as well as the one act Opera Ita Vivam, commissioned by the Guildhall School for graduating singers that was premiered successfully in March 2004 under the composer’s direction. Her music has been performed by the North Texas Ensemble (June 2004, USA), by Stephen Gutman, Richard Benjafield and Endymion as part of the Harrison Birtwistle Weekend (special commission for this occasion) at the Queen Elisabeth Hall Foyer in October 2004, and by such soloists as the young accomplished performers Alda Dizdari, Lefki Karpodini and Richard Russell. Moreover her music could be heard in many concerts organized by the Guildhall Society of New Music, at the Hellenic Centre, Markideion Theatre and the London Contemporary Dance School. An electronic piece of hers was written especially to form the background music for a pre Olympic celebration in Pafos, Cyprus in April 2004 while the Middlesex Hospital, in collaboration with the Guildhall School and the Wigmore Hall, commissioned her to write a new chamber work (July 2003). She participated in the Young Composers’ New Year Symposium organized by the Park Lane Group in January 2005 and more recently in a Masterclass with James MacMillian, in Milan. As well as composing, Christina has also shown talent in conducting. Having joined the classes of both Alan Hazeldine and Sian Edwards, she has seen herself as a conductor of mainly contemporary music.
Selected works: Messa Aktis, 2013, vl, vlc, pf; Intermède pour une mer jamais vue, 2012, orchestra; Aigaio: In memoriam Ilias Venezis, 2012, 12 vlc; Alma for solo viola and Symphony Orchestra, 2011; De l’âme, 2010-11, S,A,T,B; L’autre solitude, 2010, for solo violoncello; Pyrophane, 2009, cl, pf; Black circle, orchestra, 2008; The veil of tears, 2006, vl, vla, vlc; In vein, 2005, V, ob, chit, vlc, perc.
Awards: the Aldworth Philharmonic Orchestra Young Composers Award, leading to three commissions for 2006/07; the First Prize in the Panhellenic Chamber music Composition Competition for the 20th Foundation Anniversary of the School of Fine Arts of the “Aristoteleio” University of Thessaloniki, after a decision made upon selection amongst anonymous submissions in October 2005; Hellenic Centre (London) Presentation for songs May 2005
Contact: www.athinodorou.com
