Online discussion between composers featured at this year’s festival which will see a total of three world premieres and multiple Asian premieres, including music commissioned for Cosmopolis. Participants include Grammy Award-winner and Pulitzer-finalist Augusta Read Thomas; noted sound and installation artist Samson Young; Guggenheim Fellow and University of London composition faculty Tonia Ko; award-winning Baptist University composition professor Stylianos Dimou, joining HKUST’s composition faculty, Ilari Kaila and Timothy Page.
Bios:
One of the most widely performed living composers in America today, Augusta Read Thomas (“a true virtuoso composer” —The New York Times) has won the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and was featured on a Grammy-winning CD by Chanticleer. In 2016, Thomas was named the Chicagoan of the Year. Championed by such luminaries as Barenboim, Rostropovich, Boulez, Eschenbach, Salonen, Maazel, Ozawa, and Knussen, she rose early to the top of her profession. The American Academy of Arts and Letters described Thomas as “one of the most recognizable and widely loved figures in American Music."
Recent and upcoming commissions include those from the Santa Fe Opera in collaboration with the San Francisco Opera and other opera companies, PEAK Performances at Montclair State University and the Martha Graham Dance Company, the Cathedral Choral Society of Washington D.C., the Indianapolis Symphony, Tanglewood, the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, Des Moines Symphony, Boston Symphony, Utah Symphony, Wigmore Hall in London, JACK quartet, Third Coast Percussion, Spektral Quartet, Chicago Philharmonic, Eugene Symphony, the Danish Chamber Players, Notre Dame University, Lorelei Vocal Ensemble, and the Fromm Foundation.
Thomas is a University Professor of Composition in Music and the College at the University of Chicago. Thomas was the longest-serving Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for conductors Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez (1997–2006). She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Multi-disciplinary artist Samson Young (b. 1979, Hong Kong) works in sound, performance, video, and installation. He graduated with a PhD in Music Composition from Princeton University in 2013. He was Hong Kong Sinfonietta’s Artist Associate from 2008 to 2009. In 2017, he represented Hong Kong at the 57th Venice Biennale. Other solo projects include the De Appel, Amsterdam; Kunsthalle Düsseldorf; Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh; SMART Museum, Chicago; Centre for Contemporary Chinese Art in Manchester; M+ Pavilion, Hong Kong; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Ryosoku-in at Kenninji Temple, Kyoto; Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne; and Jameel Art Centre, Dubai, among others. Selected group exhibitions include Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Gropius Bau, Berlin; Performa 19, New York; Biennale of Sydney; Shanghai Biennale; National Museum of Art, Osaka; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; Ars Electronica, Linz; and documenta 14: documenta radio, among others. In 2020, he was awarded the inaugural Uli Sigg Prize.
Tonia Ko’s creative evolution is largely guided by three conceptual pillars: texture, physical movement, and the relationship between melody and memory. These ideas permeate her work across a variety of media—from instrumental solos and large ensemble pieces to improvisations and sound installations. The Recipient of a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship, Ko has been commissioned by leading soloists and ensembles from a broad range of the music scene. She recently collaborated with Riot Ensemble, Tangram Collective, Grossman Ensemble, and Spektral Quartet. Her work has been performed at prominent venues such as Walt Disney Concert Hall, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, LSO St. Luke’s, and featured at the Hertzbreakerz Sound Spaces Festival and Thailand International Composition Festival. Ko was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii. She earned a B.M. with Highest Distinction from the Eastman School of Music and an M.M. from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. She holds a D.M.A. from Cornell University, where she studied with Steven Stucky and Kevin Ernste. Her practice has been enriched by further studies at the Tanglewood Music Center and Royaumont Académie Voix Nouvelles. She was the 2018-19 Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Chicago’s Center for Contemporary Composition. Upon relocating to the United Kingdom, she served as 2019-20 Honorary Research Fellow at City, University of London and was appointed Lecturer in Composition at Royal Holloway, University of London in 2020.
Stylianos Dimou is a Greek composer of acoustic, electroacoustic, and acousmatic music. Recipient of numerous International Awards and Grants, his music has been premiered and commissioned by Festivals and Institutions in Europe and the USA such as the Société des arts technologiques [SAT], impuls 2019, Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival 2019, IRCAM/manifeste, Gaudeamus Music Week, etc. His academic and artistic activities have been supported by organizations such as the Fulbright, IRCAM, Cité Internationale des Arts Paris, Herrenhaus Edenkoben, etc. His music has been premiered by renowned orchestras and ensembles such as the Ensemble InterContemporain, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, International Ensemble Modern Academy, the Arditti Quartet, Talea Ensemble, ICE ensemble, and others. Some of his awards include the Charles S. Miller Prize (2019) from Columbia University, Award for artistic excellence as a Promising young Composer from the European-wide Ulysses Network / IRCAM (2018–19), 1st Prize at the International Prize for Composition “Luigi Nono”, 3rd edition, 2nd Prize in the 24th Annual Martirano Award, etc. Dimou is an alumnus of the prestigious professional training program, Cursus, at IRCAM in Paris, and he holds a Doctoral Degree from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University. He is a Research Assistant Professor of Music in the Department of Music at Hong Kong Baptist University.
Ilari Kaila is a Finnish-American composer whose music has been described with words such as “haunting”, “intriguing”, “engaging … soulful” (The New York Times), “nearly unbearable beauty… A modern masterpiece” (The WholeNote), “melodically euphoric” (Rondo Classic), “hypnotic… trancelike… fascinatingly colorful” (New York Music Daily), “I kept coming back to it… the music is so beautiful, and I want to experience it again and again” (Orchestergraben—5 Best New Music Albums of 2020), “magnificent and glistening” (Amfion), “powerfully resonating” (Helsingin Sanomat), “haunting” (The New Yorker), and “Kaila brings with him an exciting message of rebirth built upon classical foundations” (Percorsi Musicali—Best of 2020).
His work has been presented by the MATA Festival in New York City, including the inaugural composer portrait concert in the “MATA Continued” series (“offering return engagements by some of its brightest discoveries” — Steve Smith, The New Yorker); as the Composer-in-Residence of the Chelsea Music Festival in New York and Taipei; at the American Music Festival in Albany; the Intimacy of Creativity in Hong Kong; the Metropolis Festival in Australia; the Banff Centre Summer Arts Festival in Canada; and the New York International Fringe Festival. Artists and ensembles Kaila has worked with include the Escher String Quartet, Aizuri Quartet, Tanglewood New Fromm Players, Alcott Trio, Kamus Quartet, Uusinta Ensemble, Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Emil Holmström, Melinda Masur, Rachel Cheung, Olli Mustonen, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Avanti Chamber Orchestra, Albany Symphony Orchestra, Kuopio Symphony Orchestra, Joensuu Symphony Orchestra, Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra, and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra’s chamber ensembles. An album of Kaila’s chamber music, recorded by the Aizuri Quartet and pianist Adrienne Kim, was released on the Innova Recordings label in March 2020.
Chicago-born composer, musician, and performance artist Timothy Page creates works that revolve around play with style and context, body, physical materials, and space. Page holds degrees from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland, where he established himself as a composer and studied with Veli-Matti Puumala; and the University of Chicago, where he completed his PhD with mentors Augusta Read Thomas and Anthony Cheung. In 2019 he was appointed Lecturer in Music and Digital Arts at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Page is a founder and co-director of Dayjob Collective – a Helsinki-based interdisciplinary ensemble investigating meeting points between contemporary music and performance art. His works have been performed around the globe by ensembles such as Ensemble Dal Niente (US), Third Coast Percussion (US), Eighth Blackbird (US), Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (FI), Avanti! (FI), Uusinta (FI), Defunensemble (FI), Dayjob Collective (FI), S.E.M. Ensemble (US/CZ), Caput (IS), and Cikada (NO).