Sunghyun Lee is a South Korean composer and participant of the 5th International Young Composers Academy Ticino.

Born in 1995, Sunghyun Lee started studying composition with composer Unsuk Chin in 2009. Later, from 2014, he studied composition at Seoul National University. In 2021, he graduated the master course with maestro Ivan Fedele at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Italy. 

''When I encountered this unique instrumental structure of the Ictus Ensemble, the first thing that came to my mind was the juxtaposition of various scenes in an imaginary musical theatre. In particular, the main idea of this work is about various episodes of escape from the fixed low register, fixed harmonic fields, and repetitive figures. Frequently, the instrumental gestures struggle to escape from fixed sound worlds, and they fail or succeed as a game. I hope these types of dramaturgy can make a perceptible, dynamic musical form... Spectra) and one, accelerating figure. As the music progress, they appear in cyclic form, with somewhat unexpected episodes. 
I hope this type of dramaturgy can make a perceptible, dynamic musical form...''

Sunghyun Lee (South Korea 1995):  Escape From Gravity

Sofie is a composer and violinist from Denmark and a participant of the 5th International Young Composers Academy Ticino. Currently, she is pursuing a master's degree in composition at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre with Helena Tulve as her mentor. She is a keen improviser and also a player of traditional music. 

Her Piece is going to be at the 2nd Concert of the Academy on the 29th of July. Stream the Concert through the link:

https://fb.me/e/1acFLDzWq

When writing the piece for the Ictus Ensemble I had the wish to work with substances of sounds. Sound itself being a source of arrival and departure of both the physicality of things and the utopian dream world. The title of the piece “Which seemed, when dreamed, to mean so profoundly much” I found in Sylvia Plath’s poem “The Ghost’s Leavetaking:

“Enter the chilly no man's land of precisely
Five o'clock in the morning, the no-color void
Where the waking head rubbishes out the draggled lot
Of sulfurous dreamscapes and obscure lunar conundrums
Which seemed, when dreamed, to mean so profoundly much”

(Excerpt of the Poem)

photographer: Agita Reķe

Sofie Meyer (Denmark - Estonia 1991): Which Seemed When Dreamed To Mean So Profoundly Much

Liliia Iskhakova is a Russian composer and participant of the 5th International Young Composers Academy Ticino. 

Liliia experiments with timbre sound of instruments, musical styles, and genres, works with electro-acoustic music and combines national Tatar folk songs with a contemporary sound. She is an author of vocal and choir music, orchestra, and instrumental pieces. 

Her piece "Reflection" is going to be premiered at the 2nd concert of the academy on the 29th of July. You can stream the concert through the link:

https://fb.me/e/1acFLDzWq

I have been inspired by one of the basic rules of Eastern philosophy: "Spirit is like water". Or to paraphrase — consciousness is like water. As you know, in our minds, as in a mirror, the whole world around us is reflected. It is very important whether the mirror is cloudy or clean, smooth or not. Water as the surface of a lake can also be a mirror. The calmer the surface of the water, the clearer the reflection. The more waves and ripples, the more distorted the reflection. The more restless a person is, the more excitement, anger, and fear there is in him, the more distorted he sees the world. It is very important what kind of reflection of the world we get in our spirit, in our consciousness. The calmer our state of mind, the more accurately and clearly we see what surrounds us and what is happening around us.

Liliia Iskhakova (Russia 1998): Reflection

Eden Lonsdale is a composer from Berlin (Germany) and a participant in the 5th International Young Composers Academy in Ticino. 

Eden Lonsdale studied composition at the Guildhall School of Music with Malcolm Singer, Cassandra Miller, Julian Anderson, and the Kunstuniversität Graz with Klaus Lang. Eden is fascinated by the never-ending depth of experience that can be discovered within a single sound. This reflects in his often slow or static pieces, whose focused sound-worlds invite the ear to lose itself within them. 

‘’The Roar of the World’’ takes as its starting point the sound of the cello. Amplified to make even its quietest details clearly audible, we begin to discover ever deeper layers as a new world of sound lays itself bare from within. The other instruments in the ensemble pick up individual aspects of the cello’s sound and extend them in their own ways, giving subtle dimension to the sonic landscape and bringing to the foreground its most remote corners. In this sense, the music piece functions as a sort of sonic microscope, zooming deep into different details of the same sound and discovering within them a shifting sense of dimension and time.

Eden Lonsdale (Germany 1996): The Roar Of The World

Cong Wei is a Chinese composer and vocalist and participant of the 5th International Young Composers Academy Ticino. She is the recipient of the DAAD scholarship and China Scholarship Council. Her music has been performed in China and Europe by Beijing New Music Ensemble, Ensemble Wiener Collage, MAM. Manufaktur für aktuelle Musik, Ensemble for New Music Tallinn, China Youth Orchestra, Junge Philharmonie Würzburg and Suzhou Symphony Orchestra, among others. She holds a scholarship of the Akademie Musiktheater Heute 2021 - 2023.

Her new piece "A glimpse of the Fusang Tree" is going to be premiered by the Ictus Ensemble on the 29th of July. You can stream the concert through the link:

https://fb.me/e/1acFLDzWq

The idea of "A glimpse of the Fusang Tree" is inspired by the artifact bronze tree found in the archaeological site of Sanxingdui in Sichuan Province in the south of China. This bronze tree is strikingly similar to the description of the Fusang Tree (mulberry tree) in the Chinese classic text Shan Hai Jing (Classic of Mountains and Seas). I was fascinated by this coincidence, the mythology, and ancient civilization. In this piece, I seek a cosmic and dreamlike sonority with a latent strength. The musicians will also chant the three mantra words "Om, Ah, Hum" throughout the piece and bring the sound into its pilgrimage.

Cong Wei (China 1988): A Glimpse Of The Fusang Tree

Claudia Sofía Alvarez is a Peruvian composer and participant of the 5th International Young Composers Academy Ticino, whose music seeks to explore the power of sound in the human experience, investigating sound aspects such as timbre, texture, rhythm, and gesture in vocal, instrumental, and acousmatic contexts.

MANTRA. 2.0 is the second work of her series "M.A.N.-T.R.A". Through them, Claudia Sofia Alvarez Cuba intends to explore particular vibrations and resonant symbols that may lead to a state of mind or particular perception of the sound experience. Each of them has a slogan or mantra that stimulated its genesis; specifically, M.A.N.-T.R.A. 2.0 is built around the idea of: "Expanding our limits". In that sense, the piece transits through different states, starting from a static point, followed by progressive more energetic motions that drive into a free-floating and suspended state that finishes in a more resonant and expanded sound.

Claudia Sofía Alvarez Cuba (Peru 1991): M.A.N. - T.R.A. 2.0 : Expanding Our Limits

Alice Hoi-ching Yeung is a composer and instrumentalist from Hong Kong and a participant of the 5th International Young Composers Academy Ticino. 

Alice composes music with various styles which were characterized by her life, emotions, and philosophical nature. She studied composition and electronic music at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts in 2017. She is starting the master's composition degree at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague in 2021 with receiving the Excellence Scholarship from the conservatory. Her works have been commissioned and performed by Hong Kong Composers’ Guild, Hong Kong Gaudeamus Dunhuang Ensemble, Ligeti Quartet, HKAPA Academy Symphony Orchestra, Chinese Orchestra, and Contemporary Ensemble, Takuya Otaki, Ross Aftel, among others. She was the awardee of CASH Composition Scholarship 2021, Parsons Outstanding Composition Student for Creative Music Scholarship 2021, Viola & Ruan Composition Scholarship 2019, The Society of APA Local Scholarship 2019.

"The piece 'Ding! Dong! Cha!' was inspired by the Cantonese pictophones. Ding, Dong, and Cha are very sonorous words in Cantonese, which are also the name of my three little cats. In this new work for ICTUS ensemble, the contrast between the Cantonese sonorousness and the laziness of cats will be drafted and constructed."

Alice Hoi Ching Yeung (China 2002): Ding! Dong! Cha!

Ali Latif Shushtari is a swiss-based Iranian composer and participant of the 5th International Young Composers Academy Ticino.

While studying Mathematics and Physics fulfilling both a Bachelor and a Master of Science degree, Ali Latif Shushtari educated himself in classical music and soon discovered his passion for music theory and composition which finally led him to change his academic focus. In September 2019, he was admitted directly to a Master’s degree program in Music Composition at Hochschule der Künste Bern. He currently specializes in composition with Xavier Dayer, Simon Steen-Andersen, and Dieter Ammann.

Ali Latif Shushtari (Iran - Switzerland 1990): Quartet

Alessandro Bono is an Italian composer and participant of the 5th International Young Composers Academy Ticino. 

As a composer and performer, he is interested in creating sonic materials that embrace acoustic and electric instruments. Through his works, Alessandro Bono is pursuing a coherence between timbre and gesture: his musical imagery starts from the acoustic data of sound objects, which are put into a formal structure through the manipulation and orchestration of sound descriptors. His work to be presented for the 5th edition of IYCA with Ictus is called Big Teeth, and it explores some points of junction between an electric guitar, a reversed snare drum, and a cello: each instrument is conceived and treated either as a string (bowed or plucked) and a percussion.

Alessandro Bono (Italy 1993): Big Teeth

Cuando muere, al marchitarse sus pétalos, una esfera perfecta se forma dentro de la flor.
Como el subte, las venas, los paraguas, y los caminos de las lombrices... los sistemas arbóreos crecen independientemente de los materiales que los conforman, desplegando la misma geometría. Es que en realidad vienen a llenar los surcos que ya existen en el espacio.
El sonido de la flauta es un remolino transformado en turbulencia, aire que se fragmenta y divide en forma de espiral. Aquí la re-alimentación de una escucha técnica transforma a los agujeros en resonadores, al dúo como el punto de intercambio simétrico.

Vilanos (2014), by Mei flautas

Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Markus Poschner conductor  
Christina Daletska Mezzo-Soprano  
Coro Clariére, Brunella Clerici, choir conductor
http://oscarbianchi.com/compositions/alfredo/

Alfredo, scene IV - S (excerpt)

Oscar Bianchi