ICIT 2022 Artists

Filippo Lepre: I move my first steps as a trumpeter, getting a degree in 2015 in the G. Verdi Conservatory of Milan, after which I got my Composition bachelor’s degree in 2021, always in Milan. Actually, I’m attending the composition Master at the same conservatory. A brief period of studying lyric singing gave me a clear perception of the problematic issue of writing for voice today, while the interest in the Jazz music as trumpeter gave me a knowledge of extended harmony. Recently I’m leading research on the concept of action polyphony and texture sound: on the simultaneity of instrumental actions in a single instrument, which originates the texture-sound, in which a complex sound reveals itself as a multiplicity of states in relation to each other. Understood in this way sound becomes an unstable. I’m deeply interested to build an efficient syntax with a strong irrational and improvvisative component. My music has been performed in Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Usa, Russia and Croatia by IEMA Ensemble, Divertimento Ensemble, Barcelona Modern Ensemble, Novalis Concept Ensemble, Daniel Kientzy, Francesco Dillon, Vacuum Quartet, Glass Clouds Ensemble and many others. Next projects include an album release and score publishing for Edizioni Sconfinarte, a bassoon solo piece, a double bass solo piece and participation to many European contemporary music festivals.

Evan J Lawson is one of Australia’s leading queer artists, working at the forefront of contemporary culture as composer, writer, curator, and conductor, chiefly as artistic director of interdisciplinary company Forest Collective and Content Producer for Victorian Opera. Hailed by Clive O’Connell that …the sonorities that emerged often proved extraordinary… Evan has been composing music since the age of 10 and is a graduate of developing artist programs with Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Malthouse Theatre and Grafenegg Festival. In Australia, he has studied with Benjamin Northey, Richard Gill and Johanna Selleck, and internationally with David Aronson and Matthias Pintscher who has said that his music is serene, deep, it’s even breathing the heritage of Mahler.

Evan has performed across the world, working with a variety of companies, such as the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Tonkünstler Orchestra, Moravska Filharmonie and the Bendigo International Festival of Exploritory Music. Echoes from the Labyrinth for flute, clarinet, violin, viola, and cello Greek myth, legend and cultural practice has been a source of inspiration for me throughout my time composing music. Interpreting myths has supplied me with a rich vien of story telling to help shape sound worlds. My largest undertaking exploring this was my dance-opera of 2019 Orpheus, which attempted to tell this ageless myth with a contemporary lens. My next major venture will be Labyrinth, a work which will explore the myth of Theseus, Ariande, the Minotaur and their journeys through the Labyrinth. This new piece is a test piece exploring certain harmonic and melodic ideas which will feed into the larger theatre work. This piece is divided into 5 sections: the decent, the labyrinth, the journey, the minotaur & the ascent. Musically the work is constructed around C and E flat, there relationship and various implied harmonies.

Joel Frederick Kirk‘s interest in composition stems from the social anxieties associated with having a speech impediment as a child and living as an LGBTQIA+ identifying individual in today’s still somewhat polarized society. He is primarily interested in anxiety, irritation, awkwardness and the grotesque/macabre as key points of inspiration for imagining, creating, and developing material. Ranging from the highly mechanical to the extremely untethered, his pieces occupy floating, ethereal sound-worlds where performers must work together to urgently negotiate their way through dense clouds of uncertain activity. Joel is currently studying for a PhD at SUNY Buffalo under David Felder, holding a Presidential Fellowship and a Social Impact Fellowship. He previously studied at the University of Huddersfield under Aaron Cassidy. Joel has worked with internationally renowned ensembles including the Arditti Quartet, ELISION, the Divertimento Ensemble, Tempus Konnex, Barcelona Modern, the SEM Ensemble, ensemble Suono Gialo, loadbang, and Ensemble Signal. At the end of his studies at Huddersfield, Joel received the J Wood & Sons Prize for acoustic composition and the Crabtree Prize for all-around achievement. He also won the 2022 John Golland Award and a prestigious 2022 ASCAP Morton Gould Award.