Prize-winning French composer Philippe Leroux, whose work includes electronic, acousmatic, vocal, chamber, and symphonic music, will be in-residence in the Eastman School of Music Nov. 20 and 21. His visit, sponsored by the Eastman Computer Music Center (ECMC), includes a recital and public symposium.
Leroux’s celebrated Voi(rex), a five-movement chamber piece based on a collection of poems by Lin Delpierre, will be performed by ECMC’s resident ensemble, The [Switch~ Ensemble], with soprano Sophia Burgos, in a concert at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 20, in Hatch Recital Hall. The group will also perform Smoke and Mirrors, a recent sextet by ECMC staff member Christopher Chandler.
Additionally, Leroux will open the program at the mixing console to perform spatialization of his acousmatic composition Objets trouvés…posés. Rounding out the program, soloist Wendy Richman will perform Kaija Saariaho’s Vent Nocturne for viola and electronics.
Leroux will hold a symposium for Eastman composers on Thursday, Nov. 21, from 3:30 to 5 p.m. in room 209 at the Eastman School of Music. Both the concert and presentation are free and open to the public.
Born in France in 1959, Leroux studied at the Paris Conservatory and the Villa Medicis in Rome. His compositional output of some 70 works to date is the result of commissions from such institutions as the French Ministry of Culture, Radio-France Philharmonic Orchestra, Percussions de Strasbourg, Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne de Montreal, the Koussevitsky Foundation, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Orchestre National de Lorraine, Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice, and other institutions.
Leroux has received many prizes and awards, including the 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, and Arthur Honegger Prize (Fondation de France) for his overall production.
Currently an associate professor at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in Montreal, Leroux has taught at IRCAM, was composer-in-residence at Metz Arsenal and at Orchestre National de Lorraine, and was an invited professor at Université de Montréal (UdeM). He is currently composer-in-residence at Ensemble MEITAR in Tel-Aviv.
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