Pietro Elia Barcellona is an Italian contrabassist, composer and improviser currently based in the Netherlands, where he is active in the fields of experimental music involving both improvising and performing written material.
In the field of new music, Pietro has premiered works of composers such as Frank Denyer, collaborating with Amsterdam-based Ensemble Scordatura, and Robin Engel as first double bass of the Junger Künstler Bayreuth Orchestra; as well as performing in festivals such as Gaudeamus, Amsterdam Viola Festival and Doek Festival. Pietro has also played as a soloist for Sebastian Gramss’ BasseMasse Sizilien Orchestra as part of Curva Minore in Palermo. Pietro has studied with teachers such Dario Calderone and Ernst Glerum and his repertoire includes composers such as Giacinto Scelsi, Stefano Scodanibbio, Salvatore Sciarrino. Pietro has also received lessons in contemporary chamber music from Helen Hulst and Nick Sterling, members of Nieuw Amsterdams Peil.
As an improviser Pietro has performed with numerous formations. He is co-leader of Fade in Trio, an ensemble focused on exploring ways of mixing Carnatic rhythms, free improvisation and unconventional techniques. The trio was among the winners of “Tomorrow’s Jazz Prize” in Venice in 2021. Pietro is also a member of Moving Air Ensemble, an immersive project involving a kinetic sound installation combined with an acoustic ensemble. Furthermore, he is a member of Stab Freeze Collective (a sound painting ensemble), All Strings (an improvised music series of only string instruments players).
As a composer Pietro is interested in exploring the boundaries of composition and improvisation as well as the relationship between musical gesture and rhythm. Pietro is founder and co-leader of Ensemble Mellonta, a collective devoted to the performance of contemporary music and new compositions for which he also composes.
Marcus Weiss is one of the leading international „classical“ saxophone players. His repertoire includes all epochs of the instrument’s short history, from the beginnings in impressionistic France to the present. He is passionate about establishing the saxophone as a solo instrument in today’s classical music world.
He has played a crucial role in increasing the repertoire for the saxophone with numerous premieres of new works. Besides many others, the following contemporary composers have written solo and chamber works for him: Peter Ablinger, Georges Aperghis, Vykintas Baltakas, John Cage, Aldo Clementi, Péter Eötvös, Beat Furrer, Michael Finnissy, Stefano Gervasoni, Vinko Globokar, Erhard Grosskopf, Manuel Hidalgo, Toshio Hosokawa, Thomas Kessler, Hanspeter Kyburz, Jô Kôndô, Yu Kuwabara, Helmut Lachenmann, Roland Moser, Giorgio Netti, Brice Pauset, Stefan Prins, Wolfgang Rihm, Rebecca Saunders, Salvatore Sciarrino, Elliott Sharp, Mauricio Sotelo, Johannes Maria Staud, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Hans Thomalla, Nadir Vassena, Christian Wolff, Walter Zimmermann…
As a soloist, Marcus Weiss worked with many European orchestras and ensembles including, Ensemble Modern, Musik-Fabrik, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, Scottish Symphony Orchestra, WDR Symphonieorchester, Orchestra Sinfonica do Porto, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Berliner Symphonie-Orchester, Klangforum Wien, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Ensemble Contrechamps, ensemble recherche and others. He has been invited to festivals such as Wien Modern, Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik, Donaueschinger Tage für Neue Musik, Festival d’Automne de Paris, Märzmusik Berlin, Biennale Munich, Tage für Neue Musik Zürich, Salzburger Festspiele, Edinburg Festival, Eclat in Stuttgart, Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Warschauer Herbst and to festivals in Austria, France, Italy, Spain, England, Russia, Poland, Ukraine, USA and Japan.
Marcus Weiss is a dedicated chamber musician, primarily working with his two ensembles, the TRIO ACCANTO with Nicolas Hodges (piano) and Christian Dierstein (percussion), as well as with the saxophone ensemble XASAX, a saxophone quartet that he forms together with three colleagues in Paris. Trio Accanto is one of the most featured new music chamber groups of the last two decades and has first performed more than a hundred works. – The repertoire of XASAX includes not only contemporary music, but also early renaissance works and music from other epochs. In this connection, the cooperating with italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino has proved extremely inspiring for XASAX. Bach and also the music of Leos Janacek have been in the center of their latest projects.
Marcus Weiss is teaching saxophone and chamber music at the University of Music Basel (Hochschule), where he is also in charge of contemporary music. He is giving masterclasses at various international universities including Royal Academy of Music London, Universidad de Alcala Madrid, Universität der Künste in Berlin, CNSM de Paris, Universität für Musik in Wien, a number of universities in the USA, including in Boston, New York, Chicago, but also in Russia. He is a regular teacher at the „Darmstädter Ferienkurse für neue Musik“ as well as at IMPULS (ensemble academy) in Graz (Austria).
Together with italian composer Giorgio Netti he wrote The Techniques of Saxophone Playing (Kassel, Germany: Bärenreiter, 2010).
Marcus Weiss was born in 1961 in Basel, Switzerland. He studied with Iwan Roth at the Hochschule für Musik Basel and Frederick L. Hemke at Northwestern University, Chicago.
Sarah Maria Sun is known as one of the foremost and most extraordinary performers in the contemporary music scene. Her repertoire currently spans around 2000 compositions from the 16th to the 21st century, including 400 world premieres.
Sarah Maria Sun regularly performs as a soloist in concert halls and festivals such as the Suntory Hall Tokyo, the Muziekgebow Amsterdam, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Tonhalle Zurich, the Auditorio National Madrid, the Berlin and Cologne Philharmonic, the Biennale Paris, Venice and Munich, the Arnold Schönberg Center Vienna and famous festivals in Witten, Donaueschingen, Herrenhausen and Cervantino and Vertice in Mexico.
Her tremendous adaptability is demonstrated on a regular basis on the music-theater stage. She has appeared at the opera houses in Zurich, Basel, Dresden, Frankfurt, Munich, Dusseldorf, Stuttgart, Mannheim, Leipzig, Strasbourg, Luxembourg, Zagreb, and the Opéra Bastille and the Opéra Comique in Paris.
She shows her skill for haunting theatrical and musical interpretation time and again in the depiction of complex female figures. For her performances as Elsa/Lohengrin (Lohengrin by Salvatore Sciarrino, Salzburg Easter Festival 2017) and as Gwen (Psychoses 4.48 by Philip Venables, Semper Zwei Dresden 2019) she was nominated as singer of the year.
Sarah Maria Sun has performed with conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Ingo Metzmacher, Kent Nagano, Alan Gilbert, Thomas Hengelbrock, Susanna Mälkki, Peter Rundel, Heinz Holliger, together with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, the North, Bavarian, South-West and West German Radio Orchestras, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Antwerp and Tokyo Symphony Orchestras and ensembles such as musikFabrik Köln, Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Mosaik, Ensemble Intercontemporain as well as the string quartets Diotima, Arditti, Minguet and Signum.
From 2007-2014, she was the first soprano of the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, a chamber ensemble of seven singers that has been one of the world’s leading pioneers of contemporary music for decades.
Sarah Maria Sun’s discography includes more than 30 CDs, many of which have been awarded with and nominated for prizes. Sarah is also an illustrator and author of children’s books and releases songs with the band Titillating Tofu.
She regularly gives masterclasses for vocal music from the 20th and 21st centuries; she has taught at universities and conservatoires in Oslo, Harvard, Chicago, Stockholm, Zurich, Bale, Rostock, Moscow, Dresden, Hannover, Graz or Berlin. In 2018 she was guest professor at the Musikhochschule Hannover. 2019-2022 she worked as a guest professor, tutor and lecturer at the music universities of Hannover, Graz and Lucerne. 2022 she started working as a professor at the Musikhochschule Basel, Switzerland.
Performances:
4 July 2023, 21:300 | Studio Annette, Tel Aviv
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