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Press Releases
´óÏó´«Ã½ Scottish Symphony Orchestra presents first UK IRCAM Academy
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The ´óÏó´«Ã½ Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Paris-based IRCAM, the world's leading centre for composition and research in electro-acoustic music, are collaborating to host the UK's first IRCAM Academy of New Music from 7 to 12 April 2008.
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Offering exciting learning opportunities for composers, alongside a series of contemporary music concerts, this week-long festival in Glasgow is led by a team of IRCAM experts and Jonathan Harvey, the ´óÏó´«Ã½ SSO's distinguished Composer-in-Association.
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Based in the ´óÏó´«Ã½ SSO's home at Glasgow's City Halls, specialists from IRCAM, assisted by ´óÏó´«Ã½ Scotland and composers from leading educational institutions in Scotland, will run a week-long workshop focused on composition techniques using the latest computer technology.
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Interest in the academy from the UK's contemporary music community is high, and participants in the workshops comprise several eminent composers including Sally Beamish and Sam Hayden.
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The ´óÏó´«Ã½ SSO, and Chief Conductor Ilan Volkov, will also be joined by guest musicians to present a series of concerts exploring the sound worlds that new technology and traditional instruments can produce together.
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The concerts will feature music by one of the founding fathers of electro-acoustic composition, the late Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Korean Unsuk Chin – a rising star of contemporary music – as well as established masters including Jonathan Harvey, Xenakis, Richard Ayres, Yan Maresz and IRCAM's founder Pierre Boulez.
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The ´óÏó´«Ã½ SSO will be joined by sound artists and musicians including French clarinettist Alain Billard, the acclaimed young Diotima Quartet from Paris, the Scottish Ensemble and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.
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The Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) was founded in Paris by composer Pierre Boulez and remains the only centre of its kind in the world dedicated to contemporary musical research.
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Devoted to Boulez's Utopian aspiration to bring science and art together, the institute shares the research carried out in its labs and studios in the Centre Pompidou by offering a wide range of training programmes across the world for music professionals, academics and students.
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This collaboration with the ´óÏó´«Ã½ SSO is the first time that IRCAM has brought its training syllabus to the UK.
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Jonathan Harvey – who was recently awarded the inaugural Giga-Hertz award, one of the most prestigious awards for electronic music in the world – has been at the forefront of orchestral and electronic music for more than 50 years and is regarded as Europe's preeminent composer of electro-acoustic music.
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April 2008 also sees the release of a new recording by the ´óÏó´«Ã½ SSO on the NMC label of Jonathan Harvey's music, featuring two works commissioned by the ´óÏó´«Ã½: ... Towards A Pure Land and Body Mandala.
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Speaking of his relationship with the ´óÏó´«Ã½ SSO, Dr Harvey said: "When I first came to Scotland to work with the ´óÏó´«Ã½ SSO, I thought I would be working with a great symphony orchestra; what I discovered instead was one of the world's leading contemporary music ensembles."
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The ´óÏó´«Ã½ SSO/IRCAM Festival begins on Monday 7 April 2008. For further information, please go to bbc.co.uk/bbcsso.
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