biographies
jef chippewa — managing director
Canadian composer jef chippewa is particularily interested in questions of cultural awareness and identity in regards to the composer’s responsibility in inheriting or appropriating cultural heritage. Understanding the impossibility of definitive articulation or comprehension of cultural identity does not justify conscious ignorance of any of its aspects. Nor does it excuse irresponsibility in cultural appropriation, and this applies equally to the appropriation of one’s “own” culture (cultural heritage) as to that of another culture or sub-culture (“external influences”).
His compositions have been performed by such ensembles as the ensemble recherche and in festivals such as the Darmstadt Ferienkurse (Germany), FUTURA (France) and the International Sound Art Festival (Mexico). His work can be heard on Cache 2000, a compilation of the top-placing works in a competition organised by the Canadian Electroacoustic Community.
In 1999, chippewa founded shirling & neueweise, a company specialised in New Music notation, which collaborates with individual composers (Bernhard Lang, Natalia Gaviola), music ensembles (ensemble recherche), and international publishers (PeerMusic).
Since 2005, he is the Administrative co-Director of the Canadian Electroacoustic Community, Canada’s national association for electroacoustic music.
joão miguel pais — production director
Born in 1976, Pais began his musical studies with piano and violin. His first contact with composition was in 1993, studying with Evgueni Zoudilkine in Cascais. From 1996 to 2000, Pais continued his studies at the Lisbon Music Academy, under Christopher Bochmann and António Pinho Vargas. In 1998, he studied at the Royal College of Music with Jeremy Dale Roberts. Since 2002, he has been studying composition with Mathias Spahlinger, and electroacoustics with Mesias Maiguaschca and Orm Finnendahl, at the Musikhochschule Freiburg, Germany, as part of his Künstlerische Ausbildung degree. In 2003–4 his studies were supported by a grant from the Portuguese Fundação para Ciência e Tecnologia. From 2003 to 2005 he was a tutor in the electronic music studio in the Musikhochschule Freiburg.
João Miguel Pais has further complemented his professional formation through participation in courses and seminars in Lisbon (Emmanuel Nunes), Paris-IRCAM (Salvatore Sciarrino), and Darmstadt (Germany). In 1997, with Diana Ferreira and Luís Antunes Pena, Pais founded the Jornadas Nova Música in Aveiro, Portugal, a festival dedicated to new music.
alberto c. bernal — research director
Bernal was born in 1978 in Madrid, and studied piano, music theory and composition, and Jazz in Madrid and Salamanca. He studied at the Freiburg Music Academy with Mathias Spahlinger (composition), and with Mesías Maiguashca and Orm Finnendahl (electronic music studies), and works as a tutor in the electronic music studio of the same institution. He has participated several times in the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music as composer, performer and speaker. In addition to his classical music education, Bernal is also interested in other types of musical praxis, which has led him into the areas of Jazz, free improvisation, and other modes of musical creation which go beyond the notational praxis.
He is active as a performer in several improvisation projects; since 2003 he has been working with composers Johannes Kreidler and João Pais in the Endphase project, a sort of Work- / Improvisation-in-Progress for computers and traditional instruments.
Bernal has received grants from the Alexander von Humboldt, DAAD and La Caixa Foundations, the Castilla y León Government, the Spanish Music and Scenic Arts Foundation, the Oslo Spanish Embassy and the City of Darmstadt. He has won prizes in the Raum Klang — Klang Raum Composition Contest (Darmstadt) and as composer for the Artist Prize of the Madrid’s Culture Ministerium. His works have been performed in Germany (Kunstmuseum Darmstadt and the Freiburg vor Echo series), Norway (Ultima Festival) and Hungary (Bártok Festival). Further, he is regularly active as a speaker, author and translator of positions and aspects about new music.