Ivan Moody: "O Luce Eterna" (2014). World première by Cappella Musical Cupertino de Miranda, Alcobaça, Portugal, 11 July 2014.

Ivan Moody: Dante Trilogy I: O Luce Etterna

British composer James Erber was born in 1951 in London of an Austrian father and an English mother. After studying Music at the Universities of Sussex (BA, 1973) and Nottingham (MA, 1975), he was appointed Music Editor at Peters Edition, London. He left Peters Edition in 1979 and began work as a freelance editor, writer and translator.  Still largely self-taught as a composer, it was at this period he produced his first acknowledged score, "Seguente" for oboe and piano (1976-1978, revised 1980). The guidance and encouragement he received from Brian Ferneyhough (whom he had met at Peters Edition) prompted him to a serious study of composition, firstly with Jonathan Harvey at the University of Sussex (MPhil in Composition, 1983), then from 1981 to 1982 with Ferneyhough himself at the Musikhochschule, Freiburg-im-Breisgau. In 1984, at Ferneyhough’s suggestion, he made the first of five visits to the Darmstadt Ferienkurse, winning a Stipendienpreis in 1988. From 1982 to 2016, he combined activity as a composer with teaching and lecturing. Since 2016 he has been able to concentrate solely on composition. 
James Erber's work reflects a wide range of interests, including Renaissance and Baroque music, the music of South-East Asia, Jazz, blues, Mediaeval and Renaissance philosophy, Kabbalah, green politics, recent scientific developments, film noir, Jacobean tragedy, the Gothic novel and historical slang.  His music is multi-layered and complex (especially from the point of view of rhythm and form). Its complexity is, however, combined with harmonic clarity and lyricism as well as a tenuous sense of optimism and a concern with intellectual and spiritual continuity.
It has been performed and broadcast widely by soloists such as Pavlos Antoniadis, Antonella Bini, Mario Caroli, Diego Castro Magaš, Matteo Cesari, Franklin Cox, Gianpaolo Antongirolami, Gleb Kanasevich, Carin Levine, Ian Pace, Jonathan Powell, Nancy Ruffer and Michele Selva, as well as by ensembles including 175 East, the Arditti Quartet, Duo Galeano/Javaid, Exposé, ELISION, Lontano and NOISE. James Erber’s music has been recorded on NMC, Metier, Centaur Records (USA) and Convivium Records. Many of his scores are available from Composers Edition. In July 2022, his complete writings on music (1978-2021) were published by Vision Edition under the title "Fragile Continuities".

João Madureira's production includes orchestral music, chamber music, operatic music and music for solo instruments, as well as film and theatre music. His works have been presented by several ensembles, such as the Ensemble Neue Musik, the Orchestrutopica, the Remix Ensemble, the Gulbenkian Orchestra, the National Ukranian Symphonic Orchestra, the Lisbon Contemporary Music Group, the Ensemble L'Itinéraire, the Sound'Arte Electric Ensemble, the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra, the Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra, Sete Lágrimas consort, and the Officium Ensemble. His work has been commissioned, among others, by the Portuguese Republican Presidency, the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, the Fundação das Descobertas in Lisbon, the Mafra International Music Festival, the Estoril International Music Festival, the Miso Music Portugal, the Cornucópia Theatre Company, the Casa da Música in Porto, the Culturgest Foundation in Lisbon, the Grupo de Música Contemporânea de Lisboa, the Orchestrutopica, the Fátima Sancturary and the Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa. In October 1998 João Madureira was awarded the ACARTE / Maria Madalena Azeredo Perdigão prize of the Gulbenkian Foundation for his piece «Poemúsica». His work is recorded on labels such as La Ma de Guido (Barcelona, Spain, in 2000 and 2012 - LMG 2042 and LMG 2115), Deux-Elles (UK, in 2003 - DXL 1087), Arte das Musas (Portugal, in 2008 and 2010 - MU 0106 Silêncio and MU 0108 Vento), Numérica (Portugal, in 2012 - BOM 1002), and AVA Musical Editions (AVA161486).
After studying composition in Lisbon (Portugal), João Madureira studied with Franco Donatoni (Siena, Italy), with York Höller (for his advanced studies in Cologne, Germany, where he obtained his "Künstler Diplom im Fach Komposition") and with Ivan Fedele (Strasbourg, France). He has recently finished his doctoral dissertation in Historical Musicology at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal), focusing on Luciano Berio's operatic work. Madureira teaches Composition at the Escola Superior de Música in Lisbon.

Ivan Moody: Dante Trilogy I: O Luce Etterna

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