Toru Takemitsu Composition Award
4 Finalists selected for Toru Takemitsu Composition Award 2019
[Judge: Philippe Manoury]
6 Dec, 2018
Philippe Manoury, judge of the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award 2019, has chosen the following 4 orchestral works out of 83 entries from 31 countries eligibly accepted by 28 September 2018. Screening was done with the anonymous scores having only their titles.
These 4 nominated works will be performed on 9 June 2019 at the Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall : Takemitsu Memorial for Mr. Manoury’s final judgement. Here is the list of finalists in order of their entry.
Applications for 2019（PDF/136KB）
- Year 2019 Philippe Manoury (France)
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Photo: Tomoko Hidaki
Finalists (in order of entry)
Zhuosheng Jin (China)
At The End Of Snow Line For full orchestra
Born in Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province, China in 1991. He is composer, pianist, and poet currently based in Montreal, Canada. Throughout his music, he has been interested in relationships between musical gestures and sound. His recent collaborations include Klangforum Wien, Meita Ensemble, Quatuor Béla, Ensemble Mdi, JACK Quartet, and Mivos Quartet, etc. His music has been played in Asia, Europe, North and South America in Festival Archipel (Switzerland), June in Buffalo New Music Festival (US), OutHear New Music Week (Greece), Composit New Music Festival (Italy), and Beijing Modern Music Festival (China), among others. He studies composition with Philippe Leroux at McGill University and holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory (BA ’15), Boston University (MM ’17), after the Middle-School Attached to the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. His former composition teachers include Josh Levine, Alex Mincek, Joshua Fineberg, and Xiaogang Ye.
https://www.zhuoshengjin.com
Shiqi Geng (China)
Resonanz vom Horizont For Orchestra
Born in Baoding City, Hebei Province, China in 1995. He started to play the piano when he was 8 years old, music theory and harmony with 11 years and composition for himself with 12 years. He began to learn composition at the Middle-School attached to the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing in 2010. He holds the Bachelor’s degree Composition from the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz in 2018, where he is currently pursuing master’s degree Composition under Prof. Gerd Kühr and Prof. Beat Furrer. He won some prizes from competitions of composition around the world, and his works are performed in Austria, Italy, France, China and Thailand, as well as with Ensemble offspring (Australia), Bruckner Orchestra Linz (Austria), Schallfeldensemble (Austria) and in Lange Nacht der Bühne in Linz, Forum Alpbach (Tirol). He received also a commission from the Musikverein Graz for a Konzert für Menschenrechte (concert for the human rights) in 2017. He receives a special scholarship from the City of Graz in 2018.
https://shiqigeng.wordpress.com
Pablo Rubino Lindner (Argentina)
ENTELEQUIAS For orchestra
Born in 1986, in Quilmes, Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a professional violinist, currently Chief of Second Violins in the Teatro Argentino Permanent Orchestra. He studied composition at the La Plata National University. In recent years he developed an international career as a composer. He participated in many festivals and received some prizes, among others: Nordic Saxophone Festival (Aarhus, Denmark) in 2015, 2016 and 2017, Maurice Ravel Contest (Italy), Musique sans frontiers organized by The Alvarez Chamber Orchestra (London); Premio Juan Carlos Paz (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Maderna Composers Competition (Lviv, Ukraine), highSCORE Festival (Pavia, Italy, 2018) and TACEC Generation Festival (La Plata, Argentina).
https://pablorubinocomposer.wordpress.com/
Siqi Liu (China)
Im Bauch des Fisches drei Tage und drei Nächte für Orchester
Born in 1991, in Lengshuijiang City, Hunan Province, China. She studied composition under Wenchen Qin and received Bachelor’s Degree and Art Master Degree at the Central Conservatory of Music from 2010 to 2018. In 2017, as an exchange student, She studied Composition under Elmar Lampson at Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. Her works reflect her Christian faith and the spiritual pursuit of beauty.
Comments for the Final / as a single judge
for the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award 2019
I received 83 scores and decided to divide my work into 2 steps. A first step was organized to select the scores which immediately attracted me, and the ones, which I had no direct interest. In the middle, of course, there was scores which I noticed some real qualities but which need to have a deeper examination. So, I decided, ironically, to have 3 categories A : the heaven, B the purgatory and C the hell. The result was 6 scores for A, 18 for B and 59 for C. The second step was much more difficult because I have to choose 4 scores among 24 which have all undeniable qualities. So I decided to follow some rigorous criteria. Here are some of them:
- I looked carefully on the individual parts of the scores in order to detect if they were totally composed or just transposed from other parts. It is clear that the transposition is an easy process with computer, but without paying attention to that, the result is frequently a sort of incoherent notation with some basic theoretical errors. That was, for me, a reason to select scores and to reject others.
- Another criteria was what I call "cut & paste composition" remembering the famous advice from Schœnberg to his students : "Don't write what a copyist could write in your place". This is also a frequent manner in some score nowadays to select a group of bars and to duplicate by clicking on a mouse. That is not composition for me.
- A third one was to detect followers of some very well-known fashion, as pure noisy music without any pitches, excess of complexity in the writing or use of many micro-intervals or extended technics which work very well in chamber music but not in orchestra because of different tunings inside a group of instruments.
At the end of this second step, I noticed that 2 scores which were originally in the purgatory moved to heaven (and vice versa…) !
Finally, I tried at the end, to choose pieces, which are not in the same musical style, some are more experimental, some more traditional, in order to express the musical diversity of today. Here are them. The order is purely numerical and not preferential.
At The End Of Snow Line
For the poetic atmosphere and the colors of the orchestral sounds. This composer knows very well how to pursue its musical ideas over the time and to create a sort of fluidity in the evolution of the musical structures. This piece is perhaps the most conventional of the 4 pieces I have selected but never falls into academism or neo-tonal styles. The music slowly evolves toward a dramatic climax near the end before evocating some material from the beginning.
Resonanz vom Horizont
For the polyphonic conception of the orchestral writing, the formal invention and the fluidity of the musical discourse. This piece is written with many details, especially in the writing of the strings which are frequently divided into several polyphonic structures. I was very interested by the diversity of the structures superimposed. I found it very original and never systematic. I am quite sure that this composer has a very good ear. The form seems being in a continual evolution and creates a sort of musical organicity to which I am very sensitive.
ENTELEQUIAS
For the great attention to the details of the orchestration (phrasés, dynamics, expressivity...) and the quality of the timbral textures. By the way this score is one of the most impressive I have seen in terms of quality of engraving and craftsmanship. The details of each part are very precisely written and that is a proof that the composer listens very well to what he is writing. One can see an influence from some early Ligeti’s works but like an original development of those kinds of interlaced textures.
Im Bauch des Fisches drei Tage und drei Nächte
For the dramatic musical construction, and the sound imagination. The composer uses a very coherent musical material with very expressive figures which will create a powerful orchestral sound. The writing for the strings especially is very elaborate, with a lot of divisions which will produce some complex textures.
Philippe Manoury
Strasbourg, November 20th 2018
Final Concert
15:00, Sun. 9 June, 2019
Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall: Takemitsu Memorial
[COMPOSIUM 2019]
Toru Takemitsu Composition Award 2019: Final Concert
Philippe Manoury, judge
Kanako Abe, conductor
Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra
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