Lecturers Academy for contemporary Music

Asia Ahmetjanova, performance, piano, porrepetition
For Asia Ahmetjanova the individuality of each person and their personal approach to music is very important. She rejects any form of generalisation of people and their activities, this way of thinking is also reflected in her compositions. 

The experimental way of dealing with the musical material and the human body, her own personal spirituality in her compositions as well as works of classical piano literature are in balance in her artistic as well as compositional life. 

Asia works as a composer and pianist, is a member of the Ensemble ö! (Switzerland) and accompanist at the Lucerne School of Music and the Bern University of the Arts. Ahmetjanova also gives lectures on her compositions and art performance.
ahmetjanova.com

Marco Blaauw, trumpet
Why the trumpet? «I’ve always had in mind the image of a troubadour, spreading the news through music. I wanted to do that too - with my trumpet. An important focus of my work has been to further develop the instrument and its playing technique, and to initiate new repertoire.»
Marco Blaauw has an international career as a soloist, and is a member of Ensemble Musikfabrik in Cologne, Germany. Blaauw works in close collaboration with both the established and younger composers of our time. Many works have been especially written for Blaauw, including compositions by Peter Eötvös, Georg Friedrich Haas, Wolfgang Rihm, Rebecca Saunders and John Zorn. Blaauw worked intensely with Karlheinz Stockhausen. Flying over the orchestra in a gimbaled cage, he played the leading role in Stockhausen’s MICHAELs REISE. He presented the premier of HARMONIES for trumpet for the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall and has premiered many solo roles from the opera cycle LICHT.
In 2015, he started working with La Monte Young and the Theatre of Eternal Music Brass Ensemble on the melodic version of «The Second Dream of the High Tension Line Stepdown Transformer.» In the coming years, he will produce many concerts throughout Europe to continue performing the version for 8 trumpets. Marco Blaauw's work is widely documented through radio, television and CD recordings. He started a series of solo CD’s in 2005, the sixth of which, Angels, was awarded the «Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik 2014.»
Blaauw has been intensely active as a teacher, starting with the Stockhausen Courses, International Darmstadt Summer Courses and Brass Academy, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Center for Advanced Musical Studies at Chosen Vale, international master classes and most recently the Stockhausen master’s program at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague.
As a composer, Blaauw was awarded the 2016 Karl Sczuka Prize (support grant) for his first radio play, «deathangel.»

Talvi Hunt, piano, correpetition
Talvi Hunt is an Estonian pianist specialised in contemporary music. Talvi is active as a soloist, chamber music musician and orchestra player, which has brought her to collaborate
with different collectives such as Collegium Novum Zürich, Ensemble Ö, Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra. She has performed in many festivals, including Lucerne Festival, Festival ECLAT (Stuttgart), Klang Basel, Festival ZeitRäume (Basel), Taktlos Festival (Zürich), reMusik (St.Petersburg), Festival AFEKT (Tallinn), ISCM World New Music Days (Tallinn) etc. Since 2015 she is working with Ensemble of Nomads, which is based in Switzerland and is concentrated on multimedia concerts. Currently she is also part of Estonian National Opera Orchestra and Ensemble for New Music Tallinn.
In 2017 Talvi obtained a Master degree in contemporary music interpretation with Prof. Florian Hoelscher at Hochschule Luzern – Musik (Switzerland). Bachelor degree in music performance received Talvi from Estonian Academy of Music and Theater with Age Juurikas. She is also interested in interdisciplinary art projects and improvisation, in which she complemented her skills in Danish National School of Performing Arts in 2012, where she created numerous performances in collaboration with dancers and actors. Talvi has participated in many masterclasses, as well contemporary music courses such as Donaueschinger Musiktage (DE), Darmstadt, 48th Internationalen Ferienkursen für Neue Musik (DE), IMPULS Academy (AT).

Garth Knox, viola
Garth Knox was born in Ireland and spent his childhood in Scotland. He studied with Frederic Riddle at the Royal College of Music in London where he won several prizes for viola and for chamber music. Thereafter he played with most of the leading groups in London in a mixture of all repertoires, from baroque to contemporary music. 
In 1983 he was invited by Pierre Boulez to become a member of the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris, which involved regular solo playing, including concertos directed by Pierre Boulez, and chamber music, touring widely and playing in international festivals.
In 1990 Garth Knox joined the Arditti String Quartet, which led him to play in all the major concert halls of the world, working closely with and giving first performances of pieces by most of today's leading composers including Ligeti, Kurtag, Berio, Xenakis, Lachenmann, Cage, Feldman and Stockhausen (the famous «Helicopter Quartet»).
In 1998, Garth Knox left the quartet to concentrate on his solo career. As a soloist, he has given premieres by Henze (the Viola Sonata is dedicated to him), Ligeti, Schnittke, Ferneyhough, James Dillon, George Benjamin and many others. He also collaborates regularly in theatre and dance projects, and has written and performed a one-man show for children.
He has recently become a pioneer of the viola d’amore, exploring its possibilities in new music, with and without electronics, and is in the process of creating a new repertoire for this instrument.
Garth Knox now lives in Paris, where he enjoys a full time solo career, giving recitals, concertos and chamber music concerts all over Europe, the USA and Japan. He is also an active composer, and his «Viola Spaces », the first phase of an on-going series of concert studies for strings (published in 2010 by Schott) combines ground-breaking innovation in string technique with joyous pleasure in the act of music making. The pieces have been adopted and performed by young string players all over the world.
Garth Knox is International Visiting Professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Eric Lamb, flute
Flutist Eric Lamb is in demand internationally as a concerto soloist, recording artist, recitalist, concert curator and chamber musician.
Since leaving his post as a core member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, Eric performs regularly as guest with a long list of the world's most important orchestras and soloist ensembles including the Boulez Ensemble, Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Modern, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Geneva Camerata, Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, Omega Ensemble (Sydney), the Cleveland Orchestra, PHACE, Camerata Bern, the City of Birmingham Orchestra, ASKO Schoenberg Ensemble and the Radio Orchestra Frankfurt. He has been invited to perform at festivals in Melbourne, Darmstadt, Graz, Salzburg, Lockenhaus, Acht Brücken in Cologne, Mostly Mozart Festival, Heidelberg Spring Music Festival, and the Bucharest Festival for New Music, to name but a few.
In the last decade, Eric has premiered more than 200 works and has worked closely with composers Viera Janarcekova, Michael Jarrell, John Adams, Kaija Saariaho, George Lewis, Ivan Buffa, Julia Purgina, Marc-Andres Dalbavie, HK Gruber, Matthias Pintscher, Reinbert de Leeuw, Michel van der Aa, Nico Muhly, Ben Foskett and conductors Sakari Oramo, Francois Xavier Roth, Franz Welser-Möst, Ludovic Morlot, Pablo Heras-Casado, Steve Schick, Susanna Mälkki.
Lamb continues to be a much sought-after teacher and is regularly invited to present workshops, master classes and lectures throughout South America, Europe and the US. He has been artist in residence at the Conservatoire Nationale de Musique et Danse La Rochelle and the Escola de Musica in Sao Paulo. Most recently, he has given master classes at the Hochschule for Musik Hannover, Birmingham Conservartoire, Royal Northern College, Vanderbilt University, Geneva Conservatory, Slovak Academy of Music in Bratislava and the Ljubljana Conservatory of Music and Dance.
Presently, Eric Lamb teaches flute, improvisation and is Chair of woodwind, brass and percussion performance at the Fredrich Gulda School of Music in Vienna Austria.
www.ericlambflutist.com

Svetlana Maraš, Music and Art Performance
Svetlana Maraš (1985) is a composer and sound artist active in the field of experimental music. Her work encompasses a variety of formats such as live performance, electro-acoustic composition, sound installations and works for the radio.
Maraš is Professor of Creative Music Technology and Co-head of Electronic Studio at Hochschule für Musik FHNW, Basel. She is the winner of the most prestigious Serbian composition prize «Mokranjac», awarded by the Serbian Composers' Association.
Maraš has presented her work internationally, at venues, festivals and events such as Kunstmuseum (Basel), Haus der Kunst (Munich), Ruhr Triennial, CTM (Berlin), Ars Electronica (Linz), Wien Modern, House of Electronic Arts (Basel), Espace Multimedia Gantner (Bourogne), Musikprotokoll (Graz), Heroines of Sound (Berlin), Onassis Cultural Centre (Athens), Stadttheater (Bern), Museum of Contemporary Art (Belgrade), Izlog Suvremenog Zvuka (Zagreb), Blurred edges (Hamburg), ICMC (New York), International Rostrum of Composers (Wroclaw), ISEA (Dubai), International Music Institute (Darmstadt), Orpheus Institute (Ghent) and many other places. 
Svetlana Maraš was SHAPE artist for 2020, and co-curator of 4fakultät concert series in Hamburg. Since 2022, she is part of the Zürich Stadt Music Commission. 
svetlanamaras.com

Jessie Marino, Music and Art Performance
Jessie Marino is a Berlin-based composer, performer, and media artist. Her compositions and solo performances abstract ideas drawn from all stripes of popular culture and political discourse, girded by a definitively humanistic sensibility rife with equal doses of wit and pathos. Marino’s pieces score out sound, video, story, lighting, and staging, treating each of these elements as expandable musical materials. She transcends the conventional materials of composition to help audiences locate music in the most commonplace activities and relations.
www.jessiemarino.com/

Melise Mellinger, violin
Melise Mellinger studied violin at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg with Professor Wolfgang Marschner from 1978 to 1983 and at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam with Professor Herman Krebbers from 1984 to 1986. From 1987 to 1991 she was a member of the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra. Since 1991 she has worked exclusively as a violinist in ensemble recherche, which she co-founded in 1984. With some 600 premieres since its founding in 1985, the ensemble has played a decisive role in shaping the development of contemporary chamber and ensemble music. She is involved in the recording of more than 50 CDs with music of the 20th and 21st centuries, which have received several international awards, including the Annual Prize of the German Record Critics and the Diapason d`Or.
From 2000 to 2010 she gave courses at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main and at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse für Neue Musik. Since 2004 she has been teaching at the Ensemble Academy Freiburg. She has also given instrumental lessons and seminars on the practice of New Music, such as at Harvard University, Cambridge, Northwestern University Chicago and at the conservatories in Lviv, Kiev, Moscow, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen as well as in Mexico and South America. Melise Mellinger has been a lecturer for New Music High Strings (violin/viola) at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart since the summer semester 2018.

Sarah Nemtsov, composition
Sarah Nemtsov was born in Oldenburg in 1980 and studied composition in Hannover and Berlin with Nigel Osborne, Johannes Schöllhorn and Walter Zimmermann, and oboe with Klaus Becker and Burkhard Glaetzner. She has received numerous prizes and scholarships, including the Busoni Composition Prize and the GEMA German Music Author Prize. She is a member of the Saxon Academy of the Arts and the Berlin Academy of the Arts. Her works have been published by Ricordi since 2016. In 2014 Sarah Nemtsov taught composition as a guest lecturer at the Cologne University of Music, and in the summer semester of 2018 she taught composition at the University of Haifa as a DAAD short-term lecturer. Since the winter semester of 2022, she has been Professor of Composition at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg. In 2025 she will be awarded the Heidelberger Künstlerinnenpreis.

She works with renowned ensembles and orchestras (WDR Orchestra, HR Sinfonieorchester, Deutsches Sinfonieorchester, RSO Wien, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Klangforum Wien, ensemble mosaik, Ensemble Adapter, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart etc.). Her works have been performed at internationally renowned festivals such as Donaueschinger Musiktage, Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music, Wien modern, ECLAT, Ultraschall, Musica, Holland Festival, Bregenz Festival, Munich Biennale, Ruhrtriennale and many more.

Nemtsov's music is characterised by sensitive eavesdropping, complex and energetic textures, musical layering and interactions between acoustic instruments and electronics. Literature or other arts often play a role, and several compositions touch on political or social issues. In 2022, her cycle «HAUS» was performed at the Ruhrtriennale – «a sound rush off the chain that opens up associative spaces» (according to the nmz). Her catalogue of works comprises over 150 compositions in almost all genres: from solo works to large orchestral works, acoustic, electronic and multimedia, including several full-length operas. DIE ZEIT wrote about her opera «SACRIFICE» (2016, world premiere 2017 Opernhaus Halle): «Sound becomes space, time becomes reality». In May 2023 her latest opera « OPHELIA » (2020–2022) to a libretto by Mirko Bonné will be premiered at the Saarländisches Staatstheater – «a shattering, imaginative and allusive musical theatre of total transgression» (Opernwelt).
Her 70-minute tetralogy «TZIMTZUM» for soloist ensemble and orchestra about cabalistic creation myths was premiered at the Essen NOW! festival with the Nikel Ensemble and the WDR Orchestra conducted by Peter Rundel. Sarah Nemtsov is currently working on another opera – «WIR» (after Yevgeny Zamyatin) – the world premiere is planned for 2026 at the Dortmund Opera.

Since 2017, Sarah Nemtsov has also been looking after the artistic estate of her mother, the painter Elisabeth Naomi Reuter. In 2023, the artist's digital archive will go online, and Nemtsov has also been involved in the publication of the art book «Elisabeth Naomi Reuter: At the Centre of Humanity. Ölgemälde und Zeichnungen» (Hentrich&Hentrich, 2015), as well as the bilingual, expanded new edition of Reuter's picture book «Judith und Lisa / Best friends» (Hentrich&Hentrich, 2024), published in 1988 as one of the first picture books on the Holocaust.

Lucas Niggli, drums, improvisation
Lucas Niggli (1968) makes music as a drummer and percussionist in the border area between improvised and composed music.
His formations include STEAMBOAT SWITZERLAND, Biondini - Godard - Niggli, KALO YELE (with Aly Keïta), Beat Bag Bohemia, the duo with singer Andreas Schaerer and A Novel Of Anomaly.
His concert tours have taken him all over the world and to many renowned festivals. He collaborates with musical personalities such as Marino Pliakas and Dominik Blum, Nils Wogram, Barry Guy, Maya Homburger, Fred Frith, John Cale, Pierre Favre, Elliott Sharp, Michael Wertmüller, Erika Stucky, Wu Wei, Flea, Xu Fengxia, Tim Berne, Felix Profos, Paul Plimley, Melvin Gibbs, Fritz Hauser, Peter Conradin Zumthor, Aly Keïta and many others.
Niggli's discography includes 60 titles, 20 of which are CDs as a leader and composer. He is also active as an organiser of concerts and festivals and as a lecturer at the Zurich University of Music (ZHdK).

Stanislas Pili, Music and Art Performance
Stanislas Pili is based in Bern and devotes his career to contemporary music, sound art, music theatre, and improvisation. He works as a percussionist, performer and composer, without barriers between roles he takes on.In his work, sound and visual elements are often composed in parallel and used freely as creative tools. On stage, there is no hierarchy of media: prepared instruments, objects, electroacoustic devices, video projections and lights are co-protagonists with the performer.He has given concerts in venues such as Gare du Nord Basel, Manifeste IRCAM Paris, SMC Lausanne, Musikfestival Bern, Sonic Matter Zürich, Acht Brücken Köln and Echoraum Wien. Other musicians have performed his compositions at the BAM Berliner Festival für aktuelles Musiktheatre, Forum Neue Musik Luzern, Archipel Genève and Bozar Brussels among others.Besides his artistic career, he is in the board of the experimental music season IGNM Bern, he has worked as director of the Concours Nicati and as assistant at the HKB Bern.
stanislaspili.com

Benoît Renaudin, Music and Art Performance
Benoît Renaudin work focuses on creating sound installations, live sound objects and scenography. Designer, musician, performer, set designer, Benoît Renaudin thrives on a wide range of projects. He favors interdisciplinary projects, imagining and designing interactive and performative objects in design, theater and contemporary music. After graduating in journalism from the IJBA (Bordeaux/France) and working for several years in the cultural press, he resumed his studies at HEAD Geneva and graduated with a Master's degree in Media Design in 2017. Since 2015, he has been collaborating in Switzerland with directors, musicians, composers and other designers. He worked with director Isis Fahmy on the Kairo[s] project (Genf, Cairo, Lausanne, Tours). In 2016 and 2017, he created the performance HORDE with Compagnie IF and designed the instruments for the performance. In 2019, he is designing the scenography and new instruments for the play Contrevent[s] (La Bâtie, Le Castrum), in which he also plays as a musician. 

Sara Saviet, violin
Sarah Saviet is a violinist based in Berlin, dedicated to the performance of contemporary music. She performs as a soloist and as a member of the Saviet/Houston Duo and Ensemble Mosaik.

Sarah’s debut solo album SPUN (Coviello Contemporary) was nominated for the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik in the category of new music. She also has solo and duo releases on the labels all that dust, another timbre, Marginal Frequency, and HCR/NMC.

In addition to frequently performing at international festivals, Sarah often teaches at universities, including the Hannover School of Music, University of the Arts Berlin, San Diego University, and Harvard University. In 2025, she will lead the violin studio for the Darmstadt Ferienkurse.
www.sarah-saviet.com

Martina Schucan, Violoncello
The new, the living is at the centre of Martina Schucan's understanding of music. At the age of 14, Martina Schucan was accepted into the master class of André Navarra in Detmold (D). After her concert exam, she continued her studies with Heinrich Schiff, Daniel Shafran and Janos Starker. A first prize at the "Gaspar Cassadò" competition in Florence and numerous other awards opened up an international concert career for her.

As a soloist she performs with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan Orchestra Tokyo, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich and plays at the international festivals of Salzburg, Lucerne, Witten, Schwetzingen, Montpellier, Bratislava and Beijing. As a chamber musician, she takes part in the chamber music festivals of Kuhmo, Prussia Cove and Davos and counts musicians such as Yuri Bashmet, Heinz Holliger, György Kurtág, Raphael Oleg, Veronika Hagen, Shlomo Mintz and the Carmina Quartet among her partners. The exploration of contemporary music is a central part of her artistic commitment. Her interpretations of Henri Dutilleux's concerto, Michael Jarrell's «Assonance V» and Bernd Alois Zimmermann's solo sonata have been acclaimed by experts and audiences alike.

Martina Schucan is a professor at the Zurich University of the Arts and a member of the Collegium Novum Zurich. 

Johanna, Vargas, Vocals
Johanna Vargas is today one of the most sought-after sopranos for contemporary music. She has participated in countless world premieres by leading contemporary composers, including Bernhard Lang, George Aperghis, Carola Bauckholt, Wolfgang Rihm, Beat Furrer, Chaya Czernowin, Lucia Ronchetti, Hans-Joachim Hespos, Johannes Kreidler, Claudia Jane Scroccaro, and Oscar Escudero. Since 2019, she has been the high soprano with the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart and regularly performs at renowned festivals for new music, such as the Donaueschingen Festival, Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, Eclat Festival Stuttgart, Présences and Manifest in Paris, Wien Modern, and Tongyeong Festival.
As a soloist, she has appeared with the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle, the MDR Symphony Orchestra under Dennis Russell Davies, and Musikfabrik Köln under Peter Rundel. From 2021 to 2024 Johanna Vargas is Artist-in-Residence at the Fondation Royaumont in France, and in 2022 she and her ensemble Duo LAB51 have been awarded a residency grant at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris.
Johanna Vargas studied in Bogotá, Bremen, Karlsruhe, and Stuttgart. Her vocal coaches include internationally renowned artists such as Hartmut Höll, Mitsuko Shirai, Angelika Luz, and Georg Nigl. Since 2018, she has been teaching contemporary vocal music and performance at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe.
johannavargas.net

Francesca Verunelli, composition 
Francesca Verunelli studied composition and piano at the Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini in Florence where she earned both diplomas summa cum laude. She went on to attend IRCAM’s cursus 1 & 2 in Composition and Computer Music specializing in electronic music. She holds a PhD from PSL University (Paris Sciences & Lettres).
In 2010 she was awarded the Silver Lion of Venice Biennale. She has been composer-in-research at IRCAM and GMEM; and resident artist of the Casa de Velasquez (Académie de France à Madrid) and the Villa Medici (Académie de France à Rome). In 2020 she was awarded the Ernst von Siemens composer's prize. In 2022 she was the recipient of the 41° Abbiati prize of the Italian critics. She has received commissions from prestigious musical institutions and ensembles such as IRCAM, Venice Biennale, Orchestre Philarmonique de Radio France, Milano Musica, NeueVocalsolisten Stuttgart, Accentus Chamber Choir, Lucerne Symphonic Orchestra, Court-Circuit ensemble, 2e2m ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, GMEM Marseille, CIRM Nice, the French State, FACE Foundation, Donaueschinger MusikTage, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, Philharmonie de Paris, Klangforum Wien among others.
Her music is regularly performed in Europe and the United States. Her work focuses on how music composition’s deep structures, harmonic thinking and formal time-writing invention can evolve in relation to the enlarged sound resources produced by the interrelated evolution of the inherited classical acoustic instrumental world, the surrounding sonic world that wraps our everyday life, and the virtual and electronic sounds.