biog - yannis kyriakides

Yannis Kyriakides biography

Yannis Kyriakides was born in Limassol, Cyprus in 1969 and in 1975 emigrated with his
family to Britain. After travelling for a year with his violin in the near east, learning traditional
music, he returned to England to study musicology at York University, later being drawn by
the music of Louis Andriessen to move to The Netherlands, with whom he studied under at
the Hague Conservatory. At that time he also had the inspiring opportunity to collaborate as
composer on three projects with the maverick conceptual sound artist Dick Raaijmaakers and
the director Paul Koek. He currently lives in Amsterdam.

As a composer and sound artist he strives to create new forms and hybrids of media,
synthesizing disparate sound sources and exploring spatial and temporal experience. He has
focused in the majority of his work on ways of combining traditional performance practices
with digital media. The sensory space where music happens is a particular preoccupation,
and for this end a way of bypassing the conventional structures of how music is presented
is sought. The question as to what music is actually communicating is also a recurring theme
in his work and he is often drawn to the relation between emotion and language and how
that defines our experience of music.

He regularly composes works for the ensembles ASKO (NL), Icebreaker (UK), Ensemble
Integrales (D), Ensemble MAE (NL) and MusikFabrik (D). Other collaborations include Orkest
de Volharding (NL), Nozferatu (UK), Palmos (Gr), London Sinfonietta (UK), LOOS (NL),
Percussion Group Den Haag (NL), Zephyr Quartet (NL), Esprit Ensemble (CA), Nsemble (RU),
Ensemble Cantus (Cr), and others. As an improviser he is involved in the Amsterdam
electronic improv scene, he has a regular duo with Andy Moor (the Ex) called Red v Green,
and is a member of the dance-music improvisation groups Magpie Music Dance, and Co-Inc.

His has written over fifty compositions, of which recent large scale works include: Strobo
(30') for six percussionists, glass and stroboscopes; Scape (80') for video and ensemble ;
Spinoza (or I am not where I think myself to be) (90') music theatre; Subliminal: the
Lucretian Picnic (45') ensemble, video, live electronics; Lab Fly Dreams (25') BBC
commission for ensemble and electronics, the Buffer Zone (60') music theatre, Escamotage
(70') music theatre (FNM Staatsoper Stuutgart) , Wordless (50') 12 electronic portraits for
headphones and PA, and Dreams of the Blind (45') 6 pieces for ensemble and video text.
His chamber opera: Ocean of Rain opened the Aldeburgh Music Festival in 2008.

In September 2000 he won the Gaudeamus composition prize for his composition a
conSPIracy cantata - which was regarded by The Wire magazine as 'a modern classic in the
making'. 'Wordless' recieved a prize in the Prix Ars Electronica 2006. Together with Andy
Moor and Isabelle Vigier he founded and runs the CD label for innovative new electronic
music, UNSOUNDS. He is artistic director of Ensemble MAE, and teaches composition at the
Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague.


		biography

	Yannis Kyriakides biography Yannis Kyriakides was born in Limassol, Cyprus in 1969 and in 1975 emigrated with his family to Britain. After travelling for a year with his violin in the near east, learning traditional music, he returned to England to study musicology at York University, later being drawn by the music of Louis Andriessen to move to The Netherlands, with whom he studied under at the Hague Conservatory. At that time he also had the inspiring opportunity to collaborate as composer on three projects with the maverick conceptual sound artist Dick Raaijmaakers and the director Paul Koek. He currently lives in Amsterdam. As a composer and sound artist he strives to create new forms and hybrids of media, synthesizing disparate sound sources and exploring spatial and temporal experience. He has focused in the majority of his work on ways of combining traditional performance practices with digital media. The sensory space where music happens is a particular preoccupation, and for this end a way of bypassing the conventional structures of how music is presented is sought. The question as to what music is actually communicating is also a recurring theme in his work and he is often drawn to the relation between emotion and language and how that defines our experience of music. He regularly composes works for the ensembles ASKO (NL), Icebreaker (UK), Ensemble Integrales (D), Ensemble MAE (NL) and MusikFabrik (D). Other collaborations include Orkest de Volharding (NL), Nozferatu (UK), Palmos (Gr), London Sinfonietta (UK), LOOS (NL), Percussion Group Den Haag (NL), Zephyr Quartet (NL), Esprit Ensemble (CA), Nsemble (RU), Ensemble Cantus (Cr), and others. As an improviser he is involved in the Amsterdam electronic improv scene, he has a regular duo with Andy Moor (the Ex) called Red v Green, and is a member of the dance-music improvisation groups Magpie Music Dance, and Co-Inc. His has written over fifty compositions, of which recent large scale works include: Strobo (30') for six percussionists, glass and stroboscopes; Scape (80') for video and ensemble ; Spinoza (or I am not where I think myself to be) (90') music theatre; Subliminal: the Lucretian Picnic (45') ensemble, video, live electronics; Lab Fly Dreams (25') BBC commission for ensemble and electronics, the Buffer Zone (60') music theatre, Escamotage (70') music theatre (FNM Staatsoper Stuutgart) , Wordless (50') 12 electronic portraits for headphones and PA, and Dreams of the Blind (45') 6 pieces for ensemble and video text. His chamber opera: Ocean of Rain opened the Aldeburgh Music Festival in 2008. In September 2000 he won the Gaudeamus composition prize for his composition a conSPIracy cantata - which was regarded by The Wire magazine as 'a modern classic in the making'. 'Wordless' recieved a prize in the Prix Ars Electronica 2006. Together with Andy Moor and Isabelle Vigier he founded and runs the CD label for innovative new electronic music, UNSOUNDS. He is artistic director of Ensemble MAE, and teaches composition at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague.

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