COMPOSITION FACULTY
Chaya Czernowin, Faculty Composer
Chaya Czernowin was born and brought up in Israel. She studied in Israel, Germany, the US and lived also in Tokyo and in Vienna. Her music has been performed throughout the world, and she has held professorships at UCSD, at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, and was appointed the Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music (composition) at Harvard University in 2009.
Czernowin’s output includes chamber and orchestral music, with and without electronics, though her most well-known works may be for the stage, including Pnima...ins Innere (2000, Munich Biennale) chosen to be the best premiere of the year by Opernwelt), and Adama (2004/5) with Mozart's Zaide (Salzburg Festival).
Characteristic of her work are attempts to find alternative temporalities, changing perspectives and scale, fragmentation, examination and stretching of identities; all are coupled with a strong physical imprint and high emotional intensity. In addition to numerous other prizes, Czernowin was awarded the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis in the Darmstadt Ferienkurse1992, the IRCAM reading panel commission in 1998, a number of scholarships of the SWR Experimental Studio Freiburg, the composer prize of the Ernst-von-Siemens Music Foundation in 2003, the Rockefeller Foundation in 2004, the Fromm Foundation Award in 2008, the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in 2011, ISCM World Music Days in 1995 and 2001, and a nomination as a fellow to the Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin in 2008. Her work is published exclusively by Schott.
Hans Tutschku, Faculty Composer
Born 1966 in Weimar, Germany. Member of the "Ensemble for Intuitive Music Weimar" since 1982. He studied composition of electronic music at the College of Music in Dresden and since 1989, had the opportunity to participate in several concert cycles by Karlheinz Stockhausen to learn the art of sound direction. In 1991/92, he continued studies in sonology and electroacoustic composition at the Royal Conservatoire in the Hague (Holland).
Following this in 1994 was a one year’s study residency at IRCAM in Paris. In 1995/96, he taught electroacoustic composition as a guest professor in Weimar. In 1996, he participated in composition workshops with Klaus Huber and Brian Ferneyhough. From 1997 to 2001, he taught electroacoustic composition at IRCAM in Paris and from 2001 to 2004, at the Conservatory of Montbéliard.
In May 2003, he completed a doctorate (PhD) with Professor Dr. Jonty Harrison at the University of Birmingham. During the spring term of 2003, he was the "Edgar Varèse Gast Professor" at the TU Berlin.
Hans Tutschku has been working at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts since September 2004, and is Fanny P. Mason Professor of Music and Director of the Harvard University Studio for Electroacoustic Composition (HUSEAC).
He is the winner of many international composition competitions, among others: Bourges, CIMESP Sao Paulo, Hanns Eisler Prize, Prix Ars Electronica, Prix Noroit and Prix Musica Nova. In 2005 he received the Culture Prize of the City of Weimar.
Steven Kazuo Takasugi, Faculty Composer
Born 1960 in Los Angeles, studied composition with Noah Creshevsky, Bunita Marcus, Morton Feldman, Brian Ferneyhough, Joji Yuasa and Roger Reynolds (PhD chair), as well as computer music with Charles Dodge, F. Richard Moore, and Harold Cohen. He began his undergraduate work at the University of California, Los Angeles and completed the bachelor’s degree at the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music, City University of New York. He received his master’s and doctoral degrees in composition from the University of California, San Diego and has held artists and guest residencies in Japan, Germany, France, Israel, and the United States.
He’s the recipient of numerous awards including a 2010 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, a Japan Foundation Artist Fellowship and Residency, a DAAD HSK Award, a Heinrich-Strobel Foundation Experimentalstudio Grant, a Morton Gould ASCAP Award, a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, a University of California Regents Fellowship, the Maxwell and Muriel Gluck Endowed Fellowship for Music Composition, a UCLA Pierre Boulez Residency, and a special scholarship from the Mayor of Darmstadt.
Takasugi teaches composition as an Associate in the Music Department in Harvard University's doctoral student composition program and is Managing Director of the Harvard Summer Institute for Music Composition. He is on the board of directors of the Talea Ensemble, New York and the advisory board of the Eiler Foundation, San Diego. He has taught at the University of California, San Diego, the California Institute of the Arts, the Kunitachi College of Music, Tokyo, and HaTeiva in Jaffa, Israel. He is permanent faculty at the International Summer Academy for Composition, Academy Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart and the Tzlil Meudcan Summer Course for Contemporary Performance and Composition in Israel. He has lectured extensively, is author of many articles on New Music and aesthetics, and is one of the founding editors of Search Journal for New Music and Culture, a peer reviewed journal with an emphasis on New Music composition.
ENSEMBLE-IN-RESIDENCE
Talea Ensemble, Ensemble-in-residence
The Talea Ensemble has been labeled “...a vital part of the New York contemporary-classical scene” by the New York Times and has given many important world and US premieres of new works by composers including Pierre Boulez, Tristan Murail, Jason Eckardt, Pierluigi Billone, Hans Abrahamsen, Stefano Gervasoni, Marco Stroppa, and Fausto Romitelli. The Talea Ensemble was the guest ensemble for the 18-day Spectrum XXI Festival tour in Paris and London and has twice been invited as guest ensemble to the Nevada Encounters of New Music (NEON) as well as La Ciudad de las Ideas (Mexico), Art Summit Indonesia (Jakarta), and the International Contemporary Music Festival of Lima, Peru. As an active collaborator of new music the Talea Ensemble has joined forces with the Austrian Cultural Forum, Consulate General of Denmark, Korean Cultural Service NY, Italian Cultural Institute, and the Ukrainian Institute. Assuming an ongoing role in supporting and collaborating with student composers, the Talea Ensemble has served as ensemble-in-residence at Harvard University, Columbia University and New York University. The Talea Ensemble has recorded works on the Living Artists Label and Gravina Musica. Upcoming projects include two concerts at the Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt, residencies at Stanford University, Harvard University, Ithaca College, and Cornell University, and a release on Mode Records. Recently commissioned composers for upcoming seasons include James Dillon, John Zorn, Pierluigi Billone, Eric Chasalow, Victor Adan, and Georges Aperghis. For more information, please visit www.taleaensemble.org (Photo by Beowulf Sheehan)
