SONGS OF HOPE op. 116, a cycle of piano pieces in all minor keys, composed in March 2015.

Gratitude

I am a hobbyist composer, at the moment writing mostly piano music. I'd say my style is somewhere between classic and romantic. My pieces are played by the computer, with some tweaking of tempo and velocities to make the performances more human-like.

I have written down in the score every single note of every piece. My music is fully AI free.

Thanks for listening!

Stephan Maria Karl was born on 13th October 1978 in Oberndorf, a town north of Salzburg / Austria.

Since 2002 he has been studying composition and music theory at the Mozarteum University Salzburg with Reinhard Febel and Ernst Ludwig Leitner. In 2007 at the International Symposium Poetica & Cristianesimo in Rome Karl gave a speech entitled Tendencies into a New Musical Era and The Moral Responsibility of the Artist. In 2008 he graduated with a Master of Arts. In 2009 he studied at the Royal College of Music London with Ken Hesketh and in 2010 at the University of Music in Munich with Jan Müller-Wieland. Since September 2010 Karl has been studying for a PhD in composition under Julian Anderson at the Guildhall School of Music in London. He is working on a dissertation entitled Synthesis between Tonal and Atonal Sound.

Stephan Maria Karl’s compositions have been performed in Europe (Austria, England, Italy, Germany), South Africa & Canada (Toronto, Montreal). In May 2007 Pluto for large orchestra was premiered by the Mozarteum Orchestra conducted by Dennis Russell Davies. In March 2009 his second orchestra composition Hybris & Mesotes for singing bowls, speaker & orchestra was premiered by the Junge Philharmonie Salzburg. The work was recorded by ORF, the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation. Since then Hybris & Mesotes, commissioned by the regional government of Salzburg on the centennial of Leopold Kohr, the Austrian-born political philosopher, economist and Alternative Nobel Prize laureate, has been performed several times in Salzburg and London.

Stephan Maria Karl was Composer in Residence at the Soundings Festival in May 2010 in London.

Karl is currently working on his First Symphony “Holodomor” for choir and symphonic orchestra. The Holodomor was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine in 1932/33 that killed an estimated 3–8 million Ukrainians. For the purposes of this “healing project” he interacted with UNESCO (who invited him to premiere the work at the UNESCO headquarters), Orange Revolution leaders, the Holodomor Foundation Chicago, independent anti-corruption-institutions in Ukraine and was interviewed by several reporters (e.g. Ukrainian Week: https://ukrainianweek.com/Culture/46263, Radio Era: http://youtu.be/2xEG92reh4M, Deutsche Welle: http://dw.de/p/1AL2S). Currently the project is put on hold due to foiling political problems and financial straits.

Karl has been awarded several prizes and scholarships for his work as a composer. In 2010 he received the Salzburg Annual Award for Music. According to the selection committee “Karl has developed into one of the most innovative and unconventionally individual of the young composers on the Austrian music scene. Equipped with excellent technical abilities and a true sense of tone colours, he seeks to write contemporary music with a craftsman’s proficiency and vigour.” In 2011 he was awarded the Austrian Annual Scholarship for Composition by the Austrian federal government.

2013 he has completed the yoga teacher training at the Association of Yoga Vidya teachers, is teaching Yoga for Musicians and founder of Yoga Vidya Seekirchen (www.yoga-seekirchen.at), where he is currently conducting the teacher training courses. In 2021 he began the training to become a systemic coach.

I AM 
🕸❄️☀️
Creation creating Creation
Devoted to Truth and Love 🌊 ♾ 💖
Metacognition•Metaphysics•Metaculture
Transmute•Transform•Transcend
Unividuality•Duality•Plurality
Grace•Growth•Gratitude
Artist at Heart...🌈
🦉🦋🦌

Gratitude

David Ianni