COMPOSITION COURSE

XI St. Petersburg International New Music Festival

© reMusik.org

COMPOSITION COURSE

XI St. Petersburg International New Music Festival

TUTORS

Olga Bochikhina

Olga Bochikhina

(Russia)
Jérôme Combier

Jérôme Combier

(France)
Natacha Diels

Natacha Diels

(USA)
Fernando Garnero

Fernando Garnero

(Argentina)
Emilio Guim

Emilio Guim

(Ecuador / Switzerland)
Jean-Luc Hervé

Jean-Luc Hervé

(France)
© Olympia Orlova

Dmitri Kourliandski

(Russia)
Hèctor Parra 2

Hèctor Parra

(Spain)
Deqing Wen

Deqing Wen

(China)

PARTICIPANTS

Studio for New Music

Studio for New Music

Ensemble Répons

Ensemble Répons

Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble

MCME

St. Petersburg Improvisers Orchestra

St. Petersburg Improvisers Orchestra

© reMusik.org

Vacuum String Quartet

Saxophone Quartet SeVer

«SeVer» Saxophone Quartet

Venedikt Peunov

Venedikt Peunov

Mikhail Krutik

Mikhail Krutik

Serafima Verkholat

Serafima Verkholat

STUDENTS

Áhzi Kharmóna

Áhzi Kharmóna is a Costa Rican/American composer of contemporary chamber, orchestral, and film
m usic. A multi-faceted musician drawing upon a breadth of musical performance experience and a wide
array of musical genres, he is comfortable writing for the concert hall, the silver screen, or the rock venue.
Recent commissions include a work for a large brass and percussion ensemble for the Los Angeles Brass
A lliance and a saxophone quartet for the TC4 saxophone ensemble. He has studied under the expert
tutelage of esteemed and distinguished composers such as Pulitzer Prize nominee Bruce Miller Ph.D.,
R onald Caltabiano DMA (protégé of Elliott Carter and Aaron Copland), Liviu Marnescu, and Patrick
O’Malley. He has also studied film scoring with film music veteran Perry LaMarca and had previously
worked for two-time Academy Award-winning songwriter/composer Al Kasha.

Alex Matterson

Alex Matterson is a composer, improviser, and performer located in Victoria BC, Canada. Her music seeks to express an image of a monolithic structure, which up close is full of small details, but from further away, blends into one uniform structure. Her music has also been described as being like “a bird on an oil tanker”. She has completed a bachelor’s degree in Composition and Music theory, where she has studied with Christopher Butterfield, Dr. Anthony Tan, Dr. Taylor Brook, Ajtony Csaba, and Wolf Edwards.

alexmatterson.bandcamp.com

Austeclinio Lopes de Farias

Musician and researcher from Brasília, residing in São Paulo, studied Musical Composition in the University of Brasilia with Tatiana Catanzaro and Flávio Santos Pereira. Currently persuing a master’s at University of São Paulo, studying with Silvio Ferraz. He has worked as an improviser, composer and arranger with groups of various formations, such as chamber orchestras and big bands, with compositions presented in São Paulo, Brasília, Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Curitiba, Belo Horizonte, and Porto Alegre. He was a scholarship holder at Musitec 2 – 2nd seminar of music and technology: musical invention and programming environments, with the project “O Espaço Ecoa” (2020). He gave a lecture “Space echoes like an immense tomb: an ecological approach towards telematic improvisation” with Bruno Cunha at the international Open Wide Symposium organized by the FMT society in 2021. He is the founder of the record label and label “Dobradiça Enferrujada Discos, discussed in his latest book “Uncommon Music For the Common Man” by the founder of the British group “AMM”, Edwin Prévost. Artist selected for the 40th and 41st Music Workshop in Curitiba, as well as for the Contemporary Atelier of the São Paulo School of Music in 2024 and for the São Paulo Contemporary Composers Festival of the same year. Researcher and artist selected for the 6th edition of the International Symposium on New Music. Award-winning composer at the Nascente USP Festival 2023 in the classical music category. He has texts on the work of Morton Feldman, Gerard Grisey, and Hugues Dufourt published in magazines like Música (USP) and Vortex (Unespar), and currently translates and writes the preface and afterword of “No Sound Is Innocent,” also by Prévost, to be published by Numa Editora.

instagram.com/kinolopesf/

Chang Ge

Chang Ge is a composer and pianist, currently a PhD researcher at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and completed an MMus in composition at King’s College London. Her music is always inspired by various art forms by presenting gradual changes and she is interested in combining the relationship between music and visual art elements, especially contemporary Chinese visual arts. Her music has been performed by many of the orchestras and ensembles in China, the UK and Malaysia.

Darren Xu

Darren Xu is a Chinese Canadian composer who is currently completing the Artist Diploma at the Royal College of Music. He enjoys writing music for acoustic instruments, films, and cross-disciplinary collaborations. He has had the opportunity to work with various ensembles, including Standing Wave, Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra, Piano-Erhu Project (PEP), TorQ Percussion Quartet, and Trio Immersio. His first orchestral composition, To Liberate, was premiered by the WSO at the Winnipeg New Music Festival, and was subsequently read by the VSO. Darren’s collaborations with the Musqueam artist Debra Sparrow culminated in performances of his music as parts of installations and showcases of Debra’s Salish weavings, which took place at venues across Vancouver. His film score, Stargazer, was awarded Best Score by New York Film Awards in November 2018 He received his BMus, BCom, and MMus at University of British Columbia.

Edwin Ng

A native of Montreal, Edwin H. Ng (b. 1994) is a Canadian composer, pianist, and data scientist. His musical research focuses on soundscape compositions and on integrating aspects of sound design such that the playfulness of contemporary musical dialogues can be fully appreciated. Edwin’s music has been the result of numerous collaborations. He has worked with ensembles such as the London Sinfonietta, the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, and the Vancouver Chamber Choir. His music has been performed and read in Austria, Canada, Russia, and the United Kingdom. His set of choral pieces Haiku from Tashme granted him the Canadian national first prize in the choral category of the 2022 SOCAN Foundation Awards for Young Composers. He was also
among the finalists in the 2022 ROSL Composition Award in UK.
Edwin H. Ng is currently pursuing his Doctor of Music in Composition at the Université de Montréal with Jimmie LeBlanc and Ana Sokolović. He formerly completed his Master of Music in Composition at McGill University under the supervision of Sean Ferguson. Through festivals, he attended private lessons with world-renowned composers such as Yuri Kasparov, Dmitri Kourliandski, Philippe Leroux, Januibe Tejera, Deqing Wen, and Dinuk Wijeratne, as well as a masterclass with Oscar Bianchi.

Ethan Resnik

Ethan Resnik is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Music Degree in Composition at the Eastman School of Music. His works are often inspired by nostalgia, nature, and places that he visits, as well as his synesthetic associations between color and sound. Ethan was awarded first place in the Northwest Horn Symposium Composition Contest, Akron Symphonic Winds Young Composer’s Competition, Susquehanna University Composition Prize, and the Villa Musica Call for Scores. He is also the recipient of the Eastman School of Music Belle S. Gitelman Award and the Louis Lane Prize. Recently, he was awarded third place in the American Prize in Composition and second place in the Eduardas Balsys Young Composers Competition, where his music was performed on Lithuanian National Television.
His music has been performed by ensembles across the globe, including HYPERCUBE, American Modern Ensemble, Transient Canvas, Tacet(i) Ensemble, Quartetto Zuena, North/South Chamber Orchestra, Atlantic Music Festival Contemporary Ensemble, Akron Symphonic Winds, The Rhythm Method String Quartet, and the Mettis String Quartet. In addition, he was featured on NPR’s From The Top.
For two years, Ethan studied composition with Eric Ewazen at The Juilliard School Pre-College Division. He also participated in the New York Youth Symphony Composition Program, Bowdoin International Music Festival’s piano program, Brevard, Alba Music Festival, International Composition Institute of Thailand, EMERGE Workshop, Atlantic Music Festival, Mostly Modern Festival, Lake George Composer Institute, Curtis Summerfest, and the Maine Chamber Music Seminar. In March, 2024, he participated in the RED NOTE New Music
Festival.
In addition to music, Ethan is an avid roller coaster enthusiast and travels to amusement parks across the country. He also enjoys hiking, going to beaches, and world geography. Currently, he is trying to memorize the location and capital city of every country and territory in the world.

Jane Wong

Jane Wong is a composer from Hong Kong.  Growing up, her musical exposure came from hymns, Cantonese Opera, Cantopop and erhu.

Ms. Wong is a graduate of the Boston Conservatory Master’s of Music program.  While she was studying, she started working as a ballet pianist for Boston Ballet.  Ms. Wong has composed, arranged and orchestrated multiple pieces for opera companies and theatres.   Her recent chamber opera was performed in Lucca, Italy, in the Puccini International Opera Festival.

Jianing Yang

Jianing Yang (2004) is interested in using music to create a surreal and twisted experience. She draws inspiration from films & comic, literature & pop-culture, feminism and gender, as well as her experience as a ecology researcher in marine biology, hoping to deliver music in an interdisciplinary form either with literature, multimedia, or scientific deliveries calling for action. She is currently pursuing a BM in Music Composition and BA in Environmental Science at Northwestern University.

Jianing’s works has been premiered by Highscore festival, MATA.Jr program, 15-minutes-of fame, ICEBERG music festival, Chinese Central Conservatory New Music Lab, and has been performed across the United States, Italy, Austria, and China.

soundcloud.com

Jiaqi Wang

Jiaqi Wang was born in Beijing, China on September 3, 1999 Now, he is a second-year MM composition student at the University of Missouri – Kansas City, where he studies composition with Dr. Zhou Long, Dr. Chen Yi, and Dr. Paul Rudy. He began to study composition when he was 12 years old. He entered the Central Conservatory of Music Middle School in China in 2012, studied composition with professor Du Yong and professor Chen Changfeng. Then at the age of 18, he entered New England Conservatory to study composition with Canadian & American composer Kati Agocs. He graduated from the New
England Conservatory of Music in May 2022 Throughout his composing career, he has composed music of different instrumentation and genres, from solo to symphonic orchestra. He has won international awards, including the first prize in the 10th International Antonín Dvořák Composition, the 27th Young Musician International Competition ‘Città di Barletta’, and the 3rd prize in The New Symphony Vienna International Composers Competition. He has also won the Missouri Composer Project, the Donald Martino Award for Excellence in Composition at NEC, and the Balourdet String Quartet Composition Competition at NEC. In addition, many of his compositions have been selected for public performance by professional ensembles and orchestras, such as the Lithuania Mettis Quartet, Columbia Civic Orchestra, Exponential Ensemble, Barcelona Modern Ensemble, Corvus Saxophone Quartet, Volker Brass Quintet, New York S.E.M Ensemble, Atlantic Music Festival Chamber Ensemble, UMKC Percussion Quartet, Balourdet String Quartet, etc. When he composes music, he pays attention to expressing his inner feelings and his heartfelt resonance with the hearts of the audience. His ideal for music is to bring happiness, joy, and love to the hearts of others.

Kunyang He

Kunyang He, who is studying composition at Sichuan Conservatory of Music under the guidance of Associate Professor Xiang Ao. He won the first prize of the 18th Student Songwriting Competition of Sichuan Conservatory of Music, participated in the production of original songs and won the gold medal of the “Shan Jian Cup · Singing West China” original song Competition of Huaxi Group, and the second prize in the Composition Ensemble Musical Instrument category of 2023 Russian Gramophone International Music Competition in China (the first prize is vacant). Selected for the 11th St. Petersburg International New Music Festival Composition Master class. He has written, adapted and performed many songs for many performers, singers, choirs and orchestras.

Mengyong Luo

Luo Mengyong began her Bachelor’s degree and studied composition with Professor Xu Shuya and Lu Pei in Shanghai Conservatory of Music (SHCM). In 2015, she became one candidate of Recommended admission free from examinations, got enrolled in the Graduate Department. Now she is studying for her doctoral degree with Professor Lu Pei. During masterclasses, she also has received direct comments on her music by composers such as Tristan Murail, Xiaoyong Chen, Wang Ying, Liza Lim and Keeyong Chong. Her works have won several prizes include: 3rd and 11st Rivers Awards International Composition Competition in Shanghai; 2021 Composer Competition of Franz Schubert Conservatory in Vienna; 2022 International Youth Music Competition in Atlanta and 2nd Ise-Shima International Composition Competition in Japan, and has been performed in China, Germany, and the United States. She also participated in different music projects and festivals including SHCM New Music Week, Shanghai Spring International Music Festival and Foot in the Door Art Festival of Hartford University. An interview and analysis about her work is published on Journal of Music in China. In 2021, she has been selected to the New Music Digital Mentoring Program, which was co-organized with Goethe Institute and Musik Fabrik Ensemble.

soundcloud.com

Pedro Pascoali

Composer born in Santos/SP, Brazil, Pedro Pascoali is 23 years old and had his musical initiation through studying the guitar and violin, which gave him, from a very early age, experience with both Brazilian popular music and orchestral concert music. He is currently studying composition at the University of Campinas (Unicamp), where he takes classes with Denise Garcia, Francisco Zmekhol and José Augusto Mannis. He had the opportunity to study with composers Januibe Tejera, Demian Luna, Nuno Figueiredo, Tatiana Catanzaro, Alexandre Lunsqui, Paul Rudy, Felipe de Almeida Ribeiro, Leonardo Margutti, Márcio Steuernagel, Maurício Dottori, Cristina Dignart and Tonia Ko.
His work encompasses both instrumental and electroacoustic music. Since 2021 he has been awarded in several festivals and competitions in Brazil and abroad. His compositions have won competitions such as the “I Concurso de Composição da Plataforma Percussão Brasileira”, the “Festival Escrita Fina”, the “Festival Universitário da Canção”, and, with “Veleiro Kestrel” (2023), for orchestra, the “Competição Jovens Talentos da Unicamp Symphony Orchestra”. Furthermore, his work “Geométrico-orgãnico” (2023), for ensemble, was selected for the “XXV Bienal de Música Brasileira Contemporânea”. He actively participated as a composer in three editions of the “Festival Escuta Aqui!”, two editions of the “Festival Plurisons” and two editions of the “Oficina de Música de Curitiba”, occasions in which he had works performed. In 2024 he was selected in a call to compose for the “.abeceda [new music ensemble]”, from Slovenia. On these occasions, he had the opportunity to work with the instrumental groups Orquestra Sinfônica da Unicamp, Ensemble Plurisons, Ensemble Mobile and Trio Girasso; and with several other renowned performers from Brazil.

Pouyan Ramezanpour

Pouyan Ramezanpour, born in Tehran, is a composer, multidisciplinary artist and writer working across different mediums such as sound, film and performance. He has studied composition at Tehran University of the Arts, and privately with people such as Kiawasch Sahebnassagh, Karen Keyhani and Hooshyar Khayam; and will be continuing his studies at Berlin’s prestigious UdK. He is also a part of Horizon étendu academy, working on a piece to be premiered by Ensemble l’Itinéraire in 2025 His compositions include solos, duets, small ensembles, orchestral works, electronic and mixed music. He is heavily inspired by, and draws on, literature and Persian poetry in his works. With his rich background in film and theater, he is constantly trying to make bridges between art forms, shaping his own personal discipline and narrative, exploring how the art forms can affect each other.

Ssu-Ting Lin

LIN Ssu-Ting was born in Taiwan in 2001, and from a young age, she had a keen interest in music. She began learning the piano at the age of 5 and then picked up the violin 2 years later. Ssu-Ting believes that learning to play both instruments helped her to develop her compositional skills, and at the age of 13, she began writing her own music. Ssu-Ting’s talent have led her to receive numerous awards and scholarships. In 2016, she won first prize at the Taipei Piano Competition. She then won the first prize in the Taiwan Composition Competition in both 2017 and 2019, and in 2019, she was also awarded the Hsing Tian Kong Culture and Education Scholarship. In addition to her awards, Ssu-Ting has also participated in various music festival like Mixtur festival and Barcelona Modern Ensemble In 2020, Ssu Ting was awarded a full scholarship to study with Prof. Peter Edwardsat Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore . This opportunity has allowed her to further develop her skills and pursue her passion for music.

Xinming Shi

Xinming Shi (born in China) began taking piano lessons at the age of six. In 2020, she was admitted to the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, where she studied composition under Professor Deqing Wen. In July 2021, she successfully hosted a personal music salon in Ningbo, Zhejiang. Her string quartet “Abandoned Space I” won first prize in the Original Composition category at the 2022 UK International Music Competition. “Abandoned Space II” earned the gold prize in the Original Composition category at the 2022 Franz Schubert International Music Competition. “Abandoned Space III” won second prize in the Professional Composition category at the XXI St. Petersburg Spring International Art Competition and was premiered by the Pioneering-Lab Chamber Orchestra in April 2023 at the Opera House of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. She has also been awarded the Second and Third Prizes of the People’s Scholarship at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

Xunze Zhou

I was born in Wuhan China. I started to compose on music sheets when I was 15 years old till now. I graduated from University of Hartford with a Master of Music Degree for Music Composition. Most of my pieces are scored chamber music compositions. I also composed a few of vocal pieces, wind ensemble piece, orchestral piece, and basic electronic pieces. I can also arrange simple music production for accompaniments of the pop styled songs. Now I’m also teaching music theory classes.

Sometimes, I write music with a strong influence of western music theory, and classical, romantic styles. I am also interested in diverse ethnical culture. Thus, I also write music that were influenced from pop, folk music, or (serious) artistical music styles of non-western beauty standard. For serialism, post-tonal, avant-garde, extended instrumental technique, new music, and electronic music, my curiosities started to grow later and slower. However, my mind is open to new music ideas. I’m also trying to make extended instrumental techniques for my composition. I will use extended techniques when I’m conscious about the sound effects. In my opinion, any effect could be good when it adapts into certain piece of music.

My representative pieces of compositions includes “Violin Sonata No.1 (violin & piano)”, “Flute Duet No.1”, Quartet No.1 (version of strings / clarinets), “Organ Prelude”, “Bubble Tea (Saxophone, Trumpet, Piano Trio)”, Flood (piano & clarinet), “Trio For Xun, Harp, and Vibraphone”, Transient Canvas (clarinet & marimba), Nocturne No.1 (Piano Solo), “Ave Maria (acapella 4 voices)”, “Missa in D mode (acapella 4 voice + chime)” Signal From Space (electronic music), “Symphony No.1 (Wind Ensemble)”, Symphony No.2 (full orchestra as double winds).

Yifan Shao

Yifan Shao (b.2003) is a Chinese composer, vocalist, painter, photographer, choreographer, and curator. His art world is fluid, untamed, and relational. All creation he made was dedicated to communication with nature. As a composer, he manipulates the destination and relation of various elements via subtle permutation, fission, diffusion, compression, and extension. While running microtone, micropolyphony, and polyrhythm experiments, he also involves improvisation, interaction, and aleatoricism in performances. As a vocalist, he sings over five octaves, from the profound undertone to the penetrative overtone, and the magnificent bel canto to the ethereal folk singing. As a visual artist, he constructs intricate compositions and colors to achieve a dynamic equilibrium between the most humble and the most notable beings. His works have been recognized all over the world, including but not limited to Carnegie Hall, Center for New Music (San Francisco), Foreign Cinema Modernism West Gallery, Blank Wall Gallery, Huntington Beach Art Center, and Artly Mix Espaço Cultural. Yifan Shao is the recipient of the Emerging Composer Award from Tribeca New Music, and has been in residence at Nordingrå Konstby in Sweden and Musical Life Foundation in United States. He is a PhotoVogue photographer and a member of ArtSpan. He is currently pursuing his Bachelor of Music at San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Zian Chen

Born in Hangzhou in 1997, started learning piano at the age of 5 under the tutelage of pianist Chen Qiong. In 2012, studied under pianist Pan Hua and followed the Shanghai Conservatory of Music Professor Ye Guohui is studying composition. I was admitted to Shanghai Conservatory of Music in 2015 and studied under Professor Wen Deqing. In 2017, appointed as a young teacher at Shanghai Conservatory of Music Tang Shengsheng co created the original piano concerto “Ode to the Yangtze River”; In 2018, he collaborated with director Wang Tianwei to score the music for his microfilm “Nana”. Record of 2020 Graduated as a graduate student in composition from Shanghai Conservatory of Music in June 2023; In November 2023, I studied under Professor An Chengbi.