The Pacific Contemporary Music Center
California State University, Los Angeles

 

Musical Alliances Musicales

A program celebrating the mutual influences of French and American music from the early 20^th to the early 21^st century.

 

*”Fugues échos fragments” was commissioned by the Pacific Contemporary Music Center of California State University, Los Angeles and funded in part through a grant from the French-American Fund for Contemporary Music, a program of FACE with major support from SACEM and BMG Music Publishing

The French American Fund for Contemporary Music supports contemporary music projects that foster cultural exchange between France and the United States. The Fund awards grants to nonprofit institutions celebrating the work of living composers in both countries. For more information, click here.

More Information:

For more information on the composer download Mr. Bonnet's Catalogue from edition Durand (French, English and German). More information can be obtained from the IRCAM website by going to his IRCAM Informational Page (in French).

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 Antoine Bonnet

            The music of Antoine Bonnet is evocative and can be characterized as a synthesis of organic sound, shaped by his use of acoustic instrumentation and computer enhancement. At the age of 25, he entered the Conservatoire of Paris where he was awarded prizes in composition and analysis and was admitted to the Ecole Normale Supérieure where he defended his doctoral thesis, “Present Conditions and Possibilities of Musical Composition”. He is currently a professor at l'Université Rennes 2 and director of the laboratory for Music and Images: Analysis and Creation (MIAC) where he continues to work in the collaborative world of computer interactive systems.

            During his formative period, Antoine Bonnet successfully combined research and creativity in a personal way as well as founding the contemporary music review “Entretemps” and publishing numerous works of research. He then entered the Institute for Research of Acoustics and Music (IRCAM) where he invented the software “Situation” and was appointed to the post of Professor at the University of Paris where he created a class of composition.            His musical works and his writings, soon to be combined and published by “Art edition”, have been underwritten by the SACEM-Dugardin prize and the “Villa Medicis (ex mural)” awards. His work has been further recognized by various grants, notably the Ernst von Siemens Foundation Prize and the Lavoisier, to stay in Italy, Germany and the United States.

            “Seuil”, “D’une source oubliée”, “Trajectoires”, “Les Eaux étroites” and “Épitaphe”, have been performed in Europe and the United States by various orchestras, most recently by the ensemble Intercontemporain, conducted by Pierre Boulez at the Chatelet de Paris, in Chicago and Los Angeles, and at the Köln Philharmonic Hall and La Scala, Milan. In 2001 Mr. Bonnet completed his “Stimmen” which along with “Nachtstrahl (1994)” completed a cycle of works on the poet Paul Celan.

            A CD of his work has been published on Accord with Pierre Boulez and David Robertson conducting the ensemble Intercontemporain.

           

Hong-Mei Xiao

            Hong-Mei Xiao is the first-prize winner of the Geneva International Music Competition. Her musical integrity and her virtuoso technique have gained accolades from reviewers around the world. A recipient of the coveted Patek Philippe Grand Prize, Ms. Xiao has performed in major concert halls throughout Europe, North America, and the Far East. She appeared as soloist with North German Radio Orchestra, L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, European Union Chamber Orchestra, Budapest Philharmonic and Japan Philharmonic among others. As an United States Artistic Ambassador she toured extensively in Eastern Europe. Her performances and featured interviews were broadcast on television and radio internationally, and her concert recording of Frank Martin's Ballade for Viola and Orchestra was heard on over five hundred radio stations worldwide. Ms. Xiao is the first violist to record both the original and newly revised versions of the Bartok Viola Concerto. This recording with the Budapest Philharmonic has won high international critical acclaim since its release by Naxos and Marco-polo. As an active chamber music performer, she has collaborated with renowned artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Joseph Silverstein and Cho-Liang Lin.

            Ms. Xiao, who graduated with highest honors from the Shanghai Conservatory, earned a Master of Music degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Previously, she served as principal violist of the Minnesota Orchestra, as a faculty member at the University of Michigan and as a visiting professor at the Eastman School of Music.

 

Nicholas Isherwood

            Nicholas Isherwood is one of the leading singers of early music and contemporary music in the world today. He has worked with conductors such as Joel Cohen, William Christie, Peter Eötvös, Paul McCreesh, Nicholas McGegan, Kent Nagano, Zubin Mehta and Arturo Tamayo and composers Sylvano Bussotti, Elliott Carter, George Crumb, Hans Werner Henze, Mauricio Kagel, György Kurtág, Olivier Messiaen, Giacinto Scelsi, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Iannis Xenakis in the most prestigious venues in Europe (La Scala, Covent Garden, the Théatre des Champs Elysées, Salzburg Festival, Venice Biennale, Concertgebouw, Deutsche Oper, Teatro dell‚Opera di Roma....) as well as in China, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Russia and the United States. He often performs with jazz legend Steve Lacy. Some highlights of his operatic career include the role of "Plutone" in Monteverdi's Il Ballo delle Ingrate at the Angers Opera and "Antinoo" in Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria with Boston Baroque, "Claudio" in Händel's Agrippina at the festivals in Göttingen and Halle and for Harmonia Mundi records, the role of "Satiro" in Luigi Rossi's Orfeo at the Châtelet and for a European tour and Harmonia Mundi records, "Frère Léon" in Saint François d'Assise in the last Messiaen supervised production, performed at the Queen Elisabeth Hall and live BBC television for the composer's 80th birthday, the role of "Death" in Victor Ullmann's Der Kaiser von Atlantis in productions at Helmuth Rilling's Bach Akademie in Stuttgart and with Paul Mefano at the Pompidou Centre and on tour, the title role in Pascal Dusapin's Roméo et Juliette at the Avignon Festival and for a European Tour, the title role in Toshio Hosokawa's Vision of Lear for the Munich Biennale and in Japan, the role of "Il Testimone" in the world premiere of Sylvano Bussotti's Tieste at the Rome Opera, and the role of "Lucifer" in the world premieres of Karlheinz Stockhausen's operas Montag, Dienstag, and Freitag from Licht at La Scala and the Leipzig Opera and in Donnerstag aus Licht at Covent Garden. Nicholas Isherwood is a member of the Boston Camerata. He has recorded numerous CDs for labels such as Erato, Harmonia Mundi, Mode and Stockhausen Verlag. Isherwood often teaches master classes and gives lectures (Paris Conservatoire, Salzburg Mozarteum, Stanford...) and is professor of singing at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris.