Académie Voix Nouvelles 2023

Philippe Leroux was born in Boulogne Billancourt (France) in 1959. Meanwhile, he followed classes with Olivier Messiaen, Franco Donatoni, Betsy Jolas, Jean-Claude Eloy and Iannis Xénakis.

Meanwhile, he followed classes with Olivier Messiaen, Franco Donatoni, Betsy Jolas, Jean-Claude Eloy and Iannis Xénakis.

In 1993 he was selected to enter the Villa Medicis in Rome for two years, where he remained until 1995.

Philippe Leroux’s music, always very lively and often full of surprises, is marked by an original use of striking sound gestures that are organized in a rich relational network.

His compositional output (about eighty works to date) includes symphonic, vocal, electronic, acousmatic and chamber music. His works are the result of various commissionners, with among them the French Ministry of Culture, Radio-France Philharmonic Orchestra, Südwestfunk Baden Baden, IRCAM, Percussions de Strasbourg, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Court-Circuit, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne de Montreal, Avanta Ensemble, Ensemble 2e2m, Ensemble Sillages, Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain, INA-GRM, Sixtrum, Ensemble Ictus, Festival Musica, Ensemble BIT 20, Koussevitsky Foundation, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Ensemble Athelas, Orchestre National de Lorraine, Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice, CIRM, INTEGRA, and several other institutions of international standard.

He has just created his first opera, L’annonce faite à Marie, in 2022.

His music is widely performed in various European festivals and International orchestras such as Donaueschingen, Radio-France Présences (Paris), Agora (Paris), Venice Biennale, Ba th Festival, Festival Musica (Strasbourg), Stockholm ISCM, Barcelona Festival, Musiques en Scènes (Lyon), Festival Manca (Nice), Bergen Festival, Ultima (Oslo) Festival, Tage für Neue Musik (Zürich), BBC Symphony Orchestra (London), Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (Glasgow), Philharmonia Orchestra (London), Czech Philharmony, etc…

He has received many prizes and awards: Prix Hervé Dugardin, Best contemporary musical creation Award 1996 for (d’)ALLER, SACEM Prize, André Caplet and Nadia and Lili Boulanger Prizes from the Academy of Fine Arts (Institut de France), Salabert Prize for his piece Apocalypsis and Arthur Honegger Prize (Fondation de France) for his overhall production. In addition, Philippe Leroux writes articles on contemporary music, gives lectures and teaches composition at Berkeley University (California), Harvard, Grieg Academy (Bergen), Columbia University (New-York), Royal conservatory of Copenhage, Toronto University, Fondation Royaumont, IRCAM, American Conservatoire at Fontainebleau, Paris and Lyon Conservatoires Nationaux Supérieurs, Domaine Forget (Quebec) , Georgia Institute of Technology at Atlanta, Tchaïkovsky Conservatory at Moscow…

In addition, Philippe Leroux writes articles on contemporary music, gives lectures and teaches composition at Berkeley University (California), Harvard, Grieg Academy (Bergen), Columbia University (New-York), Royal conservatory of Copenhage, Toronto University, Fondation Royaumont, IRCAM, American Conservatoire at Fontainebleau, Paris and Lyon Conservatoires Nationaux Supérieurs, Domaine Forget (Quebec) , Georgia Institute of Technology at Atlanta, Tchaïkovsky Conservatory at Moscow… From 2007 to 2009 he was composer-in-residence at Metz Arsenal and at Orchestre National de Lorraine, then since 2009 to 2011, invited professor at Université de Montréal (UdeM). In 2005 and 2006 he was professor at McGill University (a Fondation Langlois programme). He is currently composer-in-residence at Ensemble MEITAR in Tel-Aviv.

His discography includes about thirty Cds including five monographs.

Described as “a composer to follow” (France Musique), Diana Soh is one of today’s most exciting young artists. A multi-disciplinary Singaporean composer based in Paris, she has written for a wide range of instrumentation and disciplines from chamber music to orchestra, dance, film, choral and vocal music, and multi-media site-specific works.

Diana’s musical interest is directed at exploring performance interactivity and obtaining specific sound colours from the intimate collaboration with performers. Known for her interest in theatre and integrating the use of technology, she often surprises her audiences and finds unique ways to address the social issues of our time in her work and “composes the impossible” (Concert Classic). Notable highlights include A is for Aiyah with soprano Elise Chauvin as the soloist, which was premiered in Singapore by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (2018), as well as her string quartet sssh with the Mettis Quartet at the Aix en Provence Festival (2018). Diana also wrote the monodrama ‘Zylan ne chantera plus’ with writer Yann Verburgh and staged by Richard Brunel as part of “Opera de Lyon – hors les murs” initiative. It was first performed in November 2021, just shortly after Diana’s Viola duo ‘My other self’ premiered at the Grand Théâtre de Provence as part of the ‘Nouveaux Horizons’ festival.

Her upcoming seasons see her continuing her adventure in the world of music theatre with two operas : Tragic Ways of Killing a Womanwhich will be premiered at Festival Aix en Provence in the summer of 2023, and The Carmen Case at the TAP (Poitiers) in May 2023, a co-commission from La Chapelle Musicale, the Gulbenkian Foundation and Théâtre du Luxembourg and ensemble Ars Nova. Her exploration of vocal writing continues with Tu es Magique for the Maîtrise de Radio France as part of the 2022 Festival Présences and a commission for choir Sequenza 93 as part of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. Other projects include a solo voice piece, La Ville-Zizi, for Laura Bowler and Chalkmalks. Diana will also be working on an organ solo commissioned by the Philharmonie de Paris for Thomas Lacote as well as a piece for chamber ensemble and electronics titled Of the spaces between for Ensemble Æquilibrium in Singapore.

Since establishing herself in Paris, Diana was Composer-in-Residence for two years (2012-13) at the National Centre for Creation – La Muse en Circuit, which concluded with a one-hour monographic concert of her works during the 2013 Festival Extension. In 2019, she was Composer-in-Residence with Divertimento Ensemble and released her first monographic CD, Still, Yet, And Again, under the Italian label Stradivarius. Her works have been broadcast internationally on WDR, ORF, Danish Broadcasting Corporation, BBC Radio 3 and France Musique. They have been performed by ensembles such as Ensemble Court-Circuit, Klangforum Wien, Arditti Quartet, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen, BIT20 Ensemble, Mettis Quartet, Quartet Adastra, SYC Ensemble Singers, Les Métaboles, Ensemble Berlin PianoPercussion, Ensemble Phoenix Basel, E-MEX Ensemble, Trio KDM, Helsinki Chamber Choir, Ensemble Multilatérale, Ensemble Lucillin, Schallfeld Ensemble, Ensemble 2E2M, and championed by flautist Emmanuelle Ophèle and soprano Elise Chauvin, as well as conductors such as Jean Deroyer, Pierre-André Valade, and Sandro Gorli.

Diana Soh studied at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory in Singapore with Peter Edwards and Ho Chee Kong, at the University at Buffalo with Jeff Stadelman, David Felder, and Tony Arnold (conducting), and IRCAM with Mauro Lanza. She has also participated in masterclasses and workshops with Péter Eötvös, Wolfgang Rihm, Salvatore Sciarrino, Brian Ferneyhough, Isabel Mundry, Misato Mochizuki, and Beat Furrer.

Diana is the recipient of the 2015 National Arts Council Singapore’s Young Artist Award and the 2017 Impuls composition competition. She has received commissions from several prestigious institutions and festivals including the Barlow Endowment for Music, Festival d’Aix en Provence, IRCAM, Ministry of Culture France and Abbaye de Royaumont Foundation, and Klang Festival Copenhagen, amongst many others.

Diana Soh participated as a composer student in the Voix Nouvelles Composition Session in 2017 and created The Nature of Things (Les Métaboles) in 2018 at the Royaumont Festival.

DU YUN, born and raised in Shanghai, China, and currently based in New York City, works at the intersection of opera, orchestral, theatre, cabaret, musical, oral tradition, public performances, electronics, visual arts, and noise. Her body of work is championed by some of today’s finest performing groups and organizations around the world.

Known for her “relentless originality and unflinching social conscience” (The New Yorker), Du Yun’s second opera, Angel’s Bone (libretto by Royce Vavrek), won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Music. She was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Classical Composition category for her work Air Glow. Her collaborative opera Sweet Land with Raven Chacon (for opera company The Industry) was the 2021 Best New Opera by the North America Critics Association. Four of her feature studio albums were named The New Yorker’s Notable Recordings of the Year, in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, respectively.

A community champion, Du Yun was a founding member of the International Contemporary Ensemble; served as the Artistic Director of MATA Festival (2014-2018); conceived the Pan Asia Sounding Festival (National Sawdust); and founded FutureTradition, a global initiative that illuminates the provenance lineages of folk art and uses these structures to build cross-regional collaborations from the ground up. Du Yun was named one of 38 Great Immigrants by the Carnegie Foundation (2018), “Artist of the Year” by the Beijing Music Festival (2019). In 2022, she was granted a Creative Capital Award for an AR inter-generational Kun-opera project. Asia Society Hong Kong has honored her for her continued contribution in the performing arts field. Other notable awards include Guggenheim, American Academy Berlin Prize, Fromm Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

As an avid performer and bandleader (Ok Miss), her onstage persona has been described by the New York Times as “an indie pop diva with an avant-garde edge.” Du Yun is Professor of Composition at the Peabody Institute, and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Her concert music is published worldwide by G.Schirmer.

Founded in 1991 by the composer Philippe Hurel and the conductor Pierre-André Valade, Court-circuit has established itself from the outset as a first-class ensemble. Its commitment to contemporary musical creation is the real cement of the ensemble, and it is the musicians and their conductor Jean Deroyer to whom Court-circuit owes its nervous, rhythmic and incisive identity.

More than ever faithful to the “concert” form, Court-circuit is invited by the most prestigious international institutions and festivals (Ircam, Radio-France, Fondation Royaumont, Venice Biennale, Festival Musica, Traiettorie, Musica electronica nova, June in Buffalo, Montréal Musiques Nouvelles, December nights S.Richter, soundfestival, Musikagileak… )

Court-circuit is also involved in multidisciplinary projects that go beyond the sphere of contemporary music (opera, film-concert, dance, etc). After having collaborated with the Paris Opera for choreographic creations, the ensemble created chamber operas in partnership with the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord (The Second Woman – Grand Prix de la critique – and Mimi, operas by Frédéric Verrières directed by Guillaume Vincent), the Opéra Comique and the Opéra de Lille (La princesse légère, an opera by Violeta Cruz directed by Jos Houben – first performance in 2017) and the Opéra de Massy-Palaiseau (Le premier cercle, an opera by Gilbert Amy directed by Lukas Hemleb).

Court-circuit has affirmed its interest in transmission by collaborating occasionally with the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris and regularly with the conservatories of Ile-de-France. In 2012, the ensemble moved to the Hauts-de-Seine. In 2014-15, it is in residence at the Conservatoire de Gennevilliers, before being welcomed from 2015-16 in a multi-year residency at the Théâtre de Vanves and from 2021 in Courbevoie.

Alongside the ensembles 2e2m, Cairn, Multilatérale and Sillages, Court-circuit founded the Ensemble(s) festival in 2020, dedicated to written contemporary music, whose third edition was held in 2022 at the Théâtre l’Échangeur in Bagnolet.

Court-circuit’s discography is rich with some fifteen recordings. Several times Coup de Coeur de l’Académie Charles Cros, these CDs have received numerous awards (Choc du Monde de la Musique, Diapason d’or, 10 de Répertoire…).

French conductor Jean Deroyer was born in 1979. He entered the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris at the age of fifteen, where he won five first prizes. Jean Deroyer has been invited to conduct the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Radio Sinfonie Orchester Wien, the SWR Orchester Baden-Baden, the Radio Sinfonie Orchester Stuttgart, the Deutsches Sinfonie Orchester, the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, the Sinfonia Varsovia, the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestre national de Lille, Orchestre national de France, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France, Orchestre national de Lyon, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Modern and Klangforum Wien in venues such as the Vienna Konzerthaus, Berlin Philharmonie, Paris Philharmonie, Tokyo Opera City and Lincoln Center in New York.

In August 2007, he performed Stockhausen’s Gruppen – for three orchestras and three conductors – at the Lucerne Festival with Peter Eötvös and Pierre Boulez. In September 2007, he was invited to conduct the Orchestre de Paris and returned to the orchestra several times in the following seasons. He has also made numerous recordings with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo and the Orchestre National d’Île-de-France for labels such as EMI Music and Naïve or for Radio-France.

In 2008, Jean Deroyer succeeded Pierre-André Valade as musical director of the ensemble Court-circuit.

Artist in residence at Royaumont (2021-2024)

* 2021 : Countless concert and Stimmung concert at the Royaumont Festival ; 2022 : Académie Voix Nouvelles; Concert-rencontre: the renewed piano-voice duo, with Magdalena Cezero as part of the Dimanches à Royaumont.

Johanna Vargas numbers among the most versatile and sought-after sopranos in the field of contemporary music. In 2020, the Colombian soprano performed with the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart alongside the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle. A member of the Vocalsolisten since 2020, she has also featured regularly at internationally renowned festivals for contemporary music, performing under the baton of Dennis Russell Davies in Naples, with Peter Rundel and the Ensemble Musikfabrik in Cologne, at the ManiFeste IRCAM in Paris, with the Ensemble Recherche at the Witten Days for Contemporary Chamber Music, and being a regular fixture at the ECLAT Festival for contemporary music in Stuttgart.

Boasting comprehensive training and experience in genres ranging from bel canto to pop music, Vargas commands a range of vocal expression that brought her critical, popular and competitive success from a very early age. In 2015, she was awarded the Hanns Eisler Performance Prize in Berlin, followed in 2018 by the John Cage Prize in Halberstadt and a performer’s scholarship at NUNC!3, the third edition of the Northwestern University New Music Conference (NUNC) and Festival in Chicago.

Johanna Vargas’ vocal beauty and coloratura virtuosity is matched by a compelling physical and acting presence that is equally at home in theatrical and experimental performance environments as it is with the nuanced demands of chamber and solo performance in the concert hall.

This versatility has led to performances with the SWR Vokalensemble at the Salzburg Festspiel, Frankfurt’s biennial cresc… Festival for contemporary music and the Musikfest at the Berlin Philharmonic Hall, as well as with the Ensemble Cantando at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. Vargas gives voice to her own artistic initiative in regular performances as one half of the duo LAB51, in partnership with the pianist Magdalena Cerezo. Vargas’ wealth of experience in opera and music theatre underlines her versatility as a performing artist, covering the full gamut of periods and styles from classical to modern repertoire. In 2020, she appeared in Irrgarten as part of the Neue Vocalsolisten’s “Aus dem Home Studio” (From the Home Studio) series, and in Malte Giessen’s Frame as part of that year’s Eclat Festival in Stuttgart.

In 2018, she performed in Beat Furre´s Opera Begehren (Desire) at the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires. Her experience in classical operatic repertoire incudes the title rôles in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel and Handel’s Rodelinda, as well as Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Miss Jessel in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, and the sorceress in Purcell’s Dido and Æneas.

Johanna Vargas has worked with such renowned artists as Sir Simon Rattle, Emilio Pomárico, Peter Rundel, Marcus Creed, Beat Furrer, Hans-Joachim Hespos, Bernhard Lang, Johannes Kreidler, Carola Bauckholt, Hans-Joachim Hespos, Wolfgang Rihm, Malte Giessen, Juliana Hodkinson, Sarah Maria Sun, Donatienne Michel-Dansac, Andreas Eduardo Frank, Julia Mihaly, Thomas Hampson, Evelyn Tubb and Anthony Rooley, as well as with many of the highest-profile contemporary music ensembles, including the Ascolta Ensemble, the Ensemble Recherche and the Ensemble Musikfabrik. The fruits of these collaborations, many of them world premières, can be heard in Vargas’ numerous CD and broadcast recordings (Deutschlandfunk Kultur, WDR, Naxos, SWR).

Johanna Vargas is a graduate of the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, the University of the Arts in Bremen and the Universities of Music in Karlsruhe and Stuttgart, having studied under leading artists including Hartmut Höll, Mitsuko Shirai, Angelika Luz and Georg Nigl. She has lectured in contemporary vocal performance at the University of Music in Karlsruhe since 2018.

Yaron Deutsch (Tel Aviv, 1978), is a guitarist mainly known for his work in the field of contemporary (classical) music. He is the founder and artistic director of the chamber quartet NIKEL and a frequent guest in Europe’s finest groups & orchestras dedicated to contemporary music. Most often he plays with the acclaimed Klangforum Wien & Musikfabrik ensembles.

As a soloist he performed with the Israeli Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien, Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai (Turin) & SWR Symphonieorchester; playing under conductors: Sylvain Camberling, Titus Engl, Peter Eötvös, Zubin Mehta, Emilio Pomàrico, Peter Rundel, Ilan Volkov & Bas Wiegers to name a few.

Recordings featuring his playing are available on Col Legno, Kairos, Neos, Sub Rosa and Wergo labels.

Apart from his performative activities, he is a professor for contemporary music at the University of Music in Basel (Hochschule für Musik FHNW / Sonic Space Basel) and guitar tutor at the Darmstadt International Summer Courses.

As well he directs the International Festival for Contemporary Chamber Music in Tel Aviv – “Tzlil Meudcan” (In Hebrew: “Updated Tone”).

Number of traines minimum / maximum

Minimum :
10 composers
8 performers: flutes, clarinets, oboe, violin, viola, cello, piano, conductor Participants have to assist the entire Academy, 15 days for the composers or 8 days for the performers.

Maximum :
10 composers
9 performers: flutes, clarinets, oboe, violin, viola, cello, conductor

Pre-requisites and conditions of access to the course

Young professional composers/performers in the process of completing their studies or with professional experience.
The participants formally commit themselves to follow the entire course, i.e. 15 days (composers) or 8 days (performers).
They must have a good level of oral English. The conditions of access are transmitted during the training.

Targeted competencies / operational objectives

At the end of the training the beneficiary will be able to :

For composers :

• Compose a new work for a given artistic group and in a given time ;
• Communicate about his/her career, his/her approach, his/her work ;
• Communicate his/her artistic intentions to the performers of his/her work ;
• Integrate the technical limits of interpretation of the work as expressed by the performers.

For performers :

• To be familiar with the characteristics of the languages of contemporary musical works ;
• Acquire the technical tools necessary to interpret a repertoire and know when and how to use them ;
• Know the extended techniques and their notation ;
• Construct a coherent concert program with a given timing ;
• Be able to design a coherent and effective rehearsal schedule ;
• Rehearse a program efficiently within a limited time frame ;
• Find one’s place musically and humanly in a group ;
• Integrate the artistic intentions given by a composer to refine the interpretation of his/her work ;
• To perceive the technical limits of the composer’s interpretation of a work; to be able to formulate them ;
• To be able to understand the composer’s thinking and to make proposals in case of blockage or difficulty ;
• To make one’s work known to the public, to the press and to professionals.

Educational objectives

Knowledge

• Deepen theoretical knowledge on a specific repertoire.

expertise

• Use the technical specificities to create a new work and present the fruit of this work in public during the final performance.

soft skills

• To find the best way to share one’s artistic intentions and to integrate the technical limitations of the performers into the writing process;
• Share your project with an audience during the final performance.

Course description/content of the training

Methods used

Pedagogical resources

Composers

• Individual lessons (2 with each composer) ;
• Group lessons (2 with each composer) ;
• Video conference sessions between the ensemble, the invited professional soloists and the composers, before the works are handed in ;
• Presentation by each composer of his or her career and work ;
• Some specific instruments will benefit from a specific presentation, in videoconference, by the invited professional instrumentalists and singers in order to facilitate the writing process ;
• Collective management sessions (creation of an ensemble, contemporary music network…) ;
• Rehearsals in the form of workshops ;
• Public concerts presenting the final works, with audiovisual recording.

Performers

The selected performers work in chamber music and ensemble conducting a repertoire of 20th and 21st century classics and also on the catalog of the composers in residence. They benefit from :

• Individual lessons with the musicians of the invited ensemble ;
• Supervised group work sessions ;
• Collective and individual rehearsals ;
• Collective management sessions (creation of an ensemble, contemporary music network…) ;
• Rehearsals in the form of workshops ;
• Public concerts presenting the final works, with audiovisual recording.

Technical means at your disposal

• Workrooms, equipped with desks and chairs.
• Outside of class time, during the training period, work spaces can be made available free of charge, upon request and subject to availability.
• Documentation via a private google drive.
• The composers will have access to a photocopier and will have the material to print their complete score and the separate parts (paper, bindings, cover).
• Beneficiaries bring :
• their own instruments (except percussion, pianos, organ and other particularly large instruments provided by the training venue) ;
• the scores that are not provided by the training site.

Monitoring and evaluation methods

Before the course

Final selection on the basis of an application file, via the Ulysses platform, by the pedagogical director, through a questionnaire that allows the identification of the beneficiary’s needs.
Evaluation of the professional level by the biography, CV, scores and recordings requested.

During the course, face-to-face

During the classroom training: evaluation of the trainee’s reactivity and ability to quickly integrate the proposals made by the instructors, as well as his or her ability to integrate into the group.

During the presentation at the end of the training: the interpretation of one or several works in a real situation in front of an audience allows to appreciate the evolution of the interpretation, as well as the emotional and physical postures.

The interview allows for evaluation and advice in terms of career orientation.

In particular, the following are observed for the beneficiary :

For composers :

• the ability to conceive and produce a balanced, original work, using writing techniques or effects in a controlled and balanced manner ;
• the ability to communicate about their work, both during rehearsals and public presentations.

For performers :

• the quality of the body and gestural ease ;
• the accuracy of the interpretation and the work accomplished in terms of ensemble practice ;
• the consideration of the spatial and acoustic configuration of the venue ;
• the quality of the relationship with the public.

The beneficiaries sign a sign-in sheet for each half-day.

End course :

A certificate at the end of the training, mentioning the objectives, the nature and the duration of the training and the results of the evaluation of the training, is given to the trainee as well as the certificate if necessary.
The trainee fills in a qualitative evaluation form in order to assess the training’s achievements from an artistic, pedagogical, human and material point of view.
A post-training follow-up is established, for which the trainees are asked to inform during the six months following the end of the training of the contracts they have obtained.
Some of the participants will be given a professional commission, paid and involving the Foundation’s partners.

Accessibility and consideration of disability situations

The Royaumont Foundation has made the acceptance and participation of people with disabilities a strong commitment to its project. Our training courses are open to people with disabilities and different arrangements can be made according to the specificities of each course. To discuss your needs, please contact us when you register.

• Rooms accessible by elevator.
• Screen equipment and amplified speakers.
• Catering on the first floor.

Pedagogical manager

Jean-Philippe Wurtz, Musical creation pole director
jp.wurtz@royaumont.com

Administrative manager

Samuel Agard, administrator Création musicale pole
s.agard@royaumont.com

Disability referents

Samuel Agard and Doriane Trouboul