Opera Creation WORKSHOP BIOGRAPHICAL BOOKLET 2018 June, 29 to July, 7 Opera Creation Workshop The Opera Creation Workshop is open each year to young creators from all disciplines and is a place for refl ection and discussion on artistic opera-related issues. This workshop seeks to defi ne current values of opera and the tasks it will assume in the future. A process of refl ection will take place, focusing equally on opera performance today and on the multidisciplinary aspects that it encompasses. Opera – as a genre, as a cultural off ering and as a cultural practice – is the main subject of these discussions. The dramaturge Klaus Bertisch, who works for the Dutch National Opera & Ballet in Amsterdam amongst other places, will be in charge of leading this workshop. No doubt he will be able to illustrate his ideas with real-life experience from his own career and open up the debate in a constructive manner. This Opera Creation Workshop is an workshop The enoa network, of which the Festival d’Aix and its Académie are founder members, was born from the wish of a number of operatic institutions to work more closely together to support the professional integration of the young artists and to support the development of their artistic ambitions. With the backing of the Creative Europe programme, enoa launched its programme designed for performers and creators, Young Opera Makers. It aims to provide young artists with a fi rst-rate training pathway using contemporary, multidisciplinary approach to opera; to give them experience of performing and of the creative process; and to support the development and dissemination of new operatic works which contribute to diversifying audiences. Thirteen members, over a thousand young artists and some three hundred professionals make up the enoa community. Follow on @enoacommunity European network of opera academies - enoa enoa_community european-network-of-opera-academies www.enoa-community.com TUTOR Klaus BERTISCH Dramaturg PARTICIPANTS Meriç ARTAÇ Composer Charlotte BRAY Composer Bastien DAVID Composer Fátima FONTE Composer Anna GOLDANOWSKA Set designer Marc HAJJAR Conductor Lisenka HEIJBOER Stage director Max HOEHN Stage director Morten K. ROESEN Stage director Thomas KOTCHEFF Composer Carolin MÜLLER-DOHLE Dramaturg Sandra POCCESCHI Stage director Stéphane Ghislain ROUSSEL Stage director Franck SIERA Playwright Member institutions of supporting participants: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Dutch National Opera Festival d'Aix-en-Provence La Monnaie / De Munt Snape Maltings Theaterakademie August Everding Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg TUTOR KLAUS BERTISCH DRAMATURG • GERMANY Klaus Bertisch studied English and German language and literature, theory of education and art education in Frankfurt. He was a dramaturg with Frankfurt Opera. He subsequently worked with the Siemens Cultural Program in Munich and for opera houses and festivals in Germany, France, Belgium and Austria. He became Head of Dramaturgy with Dutch National Opera in 1990. He has worked widely as a dramaturg with Pierre Audi (in Amsterdam, Brussels, Salzburg Festival, at the Ruhrtriennale and in Madrid) and with Willy Decker in Dresden (Der Ring des Nibelungen), for Salzburg Festival (Die tote Stadt and La Traviata) and for the Liceu, Barcelona (Death in Venice). Other credits as a dramaturg away from Amsterdam include L’Étoile at Berlin State Opera for Dale Duesing, Così fan tutte at the Bolshoi in Moscow and Semele in Karlsruhe for Floris Visser. With Christof Loy he worked recently on Ariodante for the Salzburg Festival and in Amsterdam on La forza del destino. He also has directed different projects often in collaboration with director Marcel Sijm and has staged recitals of songs with texts by Rilke, Heine, Goethe and Mörike with singers like Marlies Petersen, Olaf Bär or Mojca Erdmann. He directed Die lustige Witwe and The Gamblers at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. With soprano Esther Linssen, he recently developed the performance Lebensbaum, telling the story of a woman who was the child of a German Nazi- soldier and a Dutch woman with texts and music from Franz Schubert to Charles Aznavour. Klaus Bertisch has been a lecturer in theatre studies at the University of Amsterdam and taught at Opera Studio Nederland. He contributed to numerous books and journals, and published the collection Schwanenmärchen, a book about stage director Ruth Berghaus and the first German biography on the Dutch composer Leo Smit Unerhörtes Talent. MERIÇ ARTAÇ COMPOSER TURKEY • BORN IN 1990 – Dutch National Opera Meriç Artaç is a cultural entrepreneur in the broadest sense of the word. She was born in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1990. She started her musical education at the age of 5, when she entered the highly competitive Istanbul University State Conservatory. Upon graduating she moved to Rotterdam to study composition under de guidance of Robin de Raaf, Klaas de Vries, Luc Breawaeys, Hans Koolmees, René Uijlenhoet and most notably Peter-Jan Wagemans. In 2015, she graduated cum laude with a Master’s degree in composition. As a top graduate, she was invited to have her opera Kayra performed at the Gaudeamus Muziek Week in Utrecht. In 2016, Meriç Artaç received "de Rotterdamse School Compositieprijs" a prize from Doelen Ensemble. This prize is awarded once a year to a composition student of Codarts. During the Red Sofa series on the 10th of October 2016, the Doelen Ensemble chose to play The Writer Quadrophonic, an electronic piece that Meriç Artaç composed in 2013. She focusses on creating and composing music for theatre projects and opera. Her interest in multidisciplinary pieces has resulted in collaborations with dance, theatre and fi lm. She has composed works for Asko|Schönberg, Doelen Ensemble, Akom Ensemble. Her works have been performed during various festivals at De Doelen Rotterdam, Ostade Theater Amsterdam and TivoliVredenburg Utrecht. Currently, she is working on a new piece for the Doelen Ensemble and International Dance theater to be performed on the 11th of March 2018 at DeLaMar, Amsterdam as well as a new opera Madam Koo with De Diamantfabriek and AKOM Ensemble to be performed on the 2nd of November 2018 at OstadeTheater, Amsterdam. As of June 1st, 2016, Meriç Artaç is the Artistic Director of AKOM Ensemble, an ensemble for contemporary classical music based in Rotterdam. CHARLOTTE BRAY COMPOSER UNITED KINGDOM • BORN IN 1982 An outstanding talent of her generation, the composer Charlotte Bray studied under Mark Anthony Turnage and Joe Cutler. She has written for leading musicians, including Lawrence Power and Roderick Williams. Her associations include the London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and her work has featured at the BBC Proms, Aldeburgh, Tanglewood, Aix-en-Provence and Verbier. Sir Mark Elder, Oliver Knussen and Daniel Harding are among the renowned conductors who have performed her work. 2017 premieres include Voyage by The Nordic Saxophone Quartet (Torún, Poland); piano quartet Zustände by The Schubert Ensemble (Straford-on-Avon); and Blaze and Fall, a hommage to Kurtág, by the Jacquin Trio. Also, performances of At the Speed of Stillness by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in the ISCM World Music Days Festival; and Black Rainbow by the DalaSinfonietta and Wermland Opera Orchestra (Falun and Karlstad, Sweden). Collaborating with the BBC Symphony Orchestra on two occasions in 2016, Stone Dancer premiered at Aldeburgh Festival under Oliver Knussen; and her cello concerto Falling in the Fire under Sakari Oramo with Guy Johnston in the BBC Proms. Exploring the work of the late Tim Hetherington, a renowned photo journalist, the latter is motivated by the composer's endeavour to comprehend war and its impact in our world today. Other recent highlights include: Bluer than Midnight (Winsor Music, Boston); chamber opera Entanglement, in collaboration with librettist Amy Rosenthal (Cheltenham and Presteigne Festivals, Nova Music Opera); and a stage work Out of the Ruins (Royal Opera House Covent Garden). At the Speed of Stillness, Charlotte’s debut recording on NMC Records, was released in October 2014. Her many accolades include the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize; Lili Boulanger Prize; Critics’ Circle Award; Composer-in-residence with BCMG, Oxford Lieder Festival and Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival; named in The Evening Standard'sMost Influential Londoners (2011); Honorary Member of Birmingham Conservatoire and named Alumni of the Year (2014); interviewed for Radio 3’s Composers’ Room series; residencies at the MacDowell Colony, the Liguria Study Centre and Aldeburgh Music. In July 2018, Charlotte Bray also takes part as composer to the music chamber residency of the Académie du Festival d’Aix. www.charlottebray.co.uk BASTIEN DAVID COMPOSER FRANCE • BORN IN 1990 Bastien David, first studied composition with José Manuel Lopez Lopez and Bernard Cavanna. He is currently studying with Gérard Pesson at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique in Paris. He was invited to follow the masterclass given by the Diotima Quartet at Noirlac Abbey as well as that given by Annette Schluenz during the 2017 Berlin Impuls Festival. His music has been performed by renowned ensembles such as, 2E2M, Instant Donné, Court- Circuit, Zafraan-Ensemble, Xamp, Selini Quartet. He obtains a « Commande d’État » with the Aleph ensemble for the creation of his piece D’une rayure. His pieces have been programmed in such places as the Philharmonie de Paris, at the Théâtre de l’Aquarium at the Cartoucherie de Vincennes, the Marbrerie de Montreuil, at the Why Note Festival, at the Klasik Festival, at the Festival Le Bruit de la Musique, while recently at the 2017 Messiaen Festival for "Riff" for solo cello, which will be resumed at the Festival Aujourd'hui Musiques. His music has been broadcast on the Acousmonium GRM and on the airwaves of France Musique. Among his upcoming creations projects, a sextet for the musicians of the Ensemble InterContemporain, the commission of another sextet for the Présences Festival of RadioFrance for the TM + ensemble, as well as an order from the Festival Printemps des Arts of Monaco.