Concert IV
June 25, 7PM
MISE-EN_PLACE (45 Saint Nicholas Avenue, New York, NY 10026)
Program
Hannes Dufek (Austria/Austria): studies in intimacy II: the deep mirror (2020)
Yike Zhang (China/USA): Arroios (2023)
Cenk Ergün (Türkiye/USA): Taksim (2022)
Oliver Kwapis (USA/USA): Nocturnes
George Brunner (USA/USA): Transform
About the composers
Hannes Dufek (*1984) is an Austrian composer. His work encompasses concert and stage works and often features intermediality and graphic notation. A core interest is the possibility of free(ing) spaces, perceiving the world through music in view of freedom. Closely related to this is his dissertation on “Utopian Potential in Contemporary Music-making.” He is co-founder and was for a long time head of ensemble Platypus, for a period also board member of ISCM Austria. His work has frequently received awards and other forms of (inter)national acclaim. Hannes Dufek is a happy father of two sons and lives in Vienna.
www.hannesdufek.com
Yike Zhang (b. 1993 in Wuhan, China) is a composer based in New York. In 2024, Zhang received her doctorate from the University of Toronto. She also studied at the Manhattan School of Music and Wuhan Conservatory of Music. Her music synthesizes the worlds she was interested in from a young age — Western classical music and traditional Chinese concepts — combining those elements consciously and subconsciously, along with influences of impressionism and post-spectralism. Her works have been performed at the CUNY Graduate Center, Columbia University, and Wuhan Qintai Concert Hall. In 2025, she will be in residence at Arts Letters & Numbers.
Cenk Ergün (b.1978, Türkiye) is a composer and electronics performer based in New York.
Cenk has collaborated closely with artists such as JACK Quartet, So Percussion, Samita Sinha, Fred Frith, Sudhu Tewari, and Alvin Curran, presenting music at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Wigmore Hall, Elbphilharmonie, Muziekgebouw, Tonhalle, and Pierre Boulez Saal.
Festival appearances include the NY Phil Biennial, Lincoln Center Festival, Time:Spans, Lucerne Festival, Gaudeamus Music Week, MATA Festival, and Bang on a Can Marathon.
Records include Sonare & Celare with JACK Quartet, and Lock Me Up & Lock Me Down with Frith and Tewari.
Composer-performer Oliver Kwapis (b. 1997) has written orchestral, chamber, vocal, and electronic works performed by ensembles such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic (through the LA Phil’s Composer Fellowship Program), the National Children’s Chorus, Wet Ink Ensemble, Calder Quartet, Atlantic Brass Quintet, and pianist Eric Huebner. His music has been featured at conferences and festivals including ICMC, NIME, NYCEMF, NSEME, and June in Buffalo. He holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Data- Driven Music Performance and Composition at the University of Oregon.
George Brunner is a composer and performer, researcher/writer, recording engineer/producer and teacher. His music has been performed throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and South America. Brunner has been composer-in-residence in 1996, 1998, and 2001 at both EMS (Electroacoustic Music Studios) and Kungliga Musikhögskolan (Royal College of Music) in Stockholm. A recent recipient of research grants from the American Scandinavian Foundation and the Svenska Institutet of Sweden, he is at present writing a book on text sound composition and is considered an authority on the subject.