INTERNATIONAL ilSUONO CONTEMPORARY MUSIC WEEK
An Annual Summer Music Academy in Italy
THEOCHARIS PAPATRECHAS
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR | COMPOSER
www.theocharis-papatrechas.com
"ilSUONO Contemporary Music Week is a collaborative endeavor that emerged organically in 2015 out of my, then, five-year friendship with Michele Bianchini and the members of the contemporary music collective Ensemble Suono Giallo.
The mission of ilSUONO is to provide young emerging composers and instrumentalists unique opportunities for research, artistic challenge, experimentation, and growth. In the ideal environment of Sansepolcro, we created a setting to encourage and inspire. In this environment, a select pool of young artists, spanning over diverse cultures and aesthetic orientations, come together to collaborate closely with highly skilled professional instrumentalists and renowned composers from prestigious academic institutions.
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The founding principles that govern this annual project are dedication, passion, merit, and the desire to explore the endless potential of the musical sphere." T.P.
Originally from Greece, Theocharis Papatrechas is a composer and sound researcher.
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Praised as attaining "beautiful instrumental intensity" and laying out "an intimate narrative" (il giornale della musica), Theocharis's work draws inspiration from underwater soundscapes and uses delicate, vulnerable, and fragile sound material, which unfolds in ever-slowing narratives, seeking to manipulate the perception of time and create immersive auditory experiences akin to traversing an alternate dimension.
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His artistic portfolio consists of instrumental, electroacoustic, acousmatic, sound art, and sound installation works that involve acoustic components, pre-recorded media, and generative and interactive processes, employing Dante networking systems and ambisonics in multichannel venues.
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Renowned groups that have commissioned and premiered his works include the ensemble Intercontemporain, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Mivos Quartet, Vertixe Sonora, Ensemble Schallfeld, East Coast Contemporary Ensemble (ECCE), Divertimento Ensemble, Ensemble Multilatérale. Notable venues, at which works of his have been presented, include IRCAM, CCRMA at Stanford, SEAMUS at Berklee College, Anchorage Museum, SPLICE Institute, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF), Vienna Konzerthaus, SpazioMusica, University of Montreal, and Shanghai Conservatory of Music.
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Hired to diffuse his creative practice into scientific projects and contribute to the ever-growing research community in acoustics, Theocharis has held appointments at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Postdoctoral Scholar, 2022-23), Scripps Institution of Oceanography (Research Associate, 2021-22), and Center for New Music & Audio Technologies (CNMAT) at UC Berkeley (Visiting Composers and Researcher, 2021). His work deals with acoustic data from underwater and terrestrial environments and, through applying research on acoustics, audio engineering, sound synthesis, and spatial 3D and VR audio, purposes to formulate a broader understanding of the impacts of climate change on the environment.
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Theocharis holds a Ph.D. in Music Composition from University of California San Diego (UCSD) where he worked with Rand Steiger, and Miller Puckette. Other leading institutions he studied at include the Eastman School of Music, IRCAM, and Sibelius Academy.
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His music has been released by ArsPublica. His scores are published by Babel Scores.
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Since 2015, Theocharis serves as the Artistic Director of the ilSUONO Contemporary Music Week. The program's core mission is to diversify the practice by bringing together emerging music creators of diverse socio-economic backgrounds, ethnicities, cultures, gender orientations, and aesthetics to learn, share, and collaborate. ilSUONO is delighted to have invited exceptional senior composers, among others, Chaya Czernowin, Rand Steiger, Franck Bedrossian, Edmund Campion, Pierluigi Billone, Ann Cleare, Clara Iannotta, and performers such as the ensembles Schallfeld and Lemniscate. For the last three editions (21', 22', and 23'), ilSUONO is proud to have received grants from the esteemed Ernst Von Siemens Music Foundation.
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Since 2023, he is a Lecturer in Music Technology and Music Theory at Griffith University and at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.
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