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Meet the Composer: Kamran Ince
Please note that this event has been changed from 10 AM to Noon.
An opportunity to learn about and experience the creative process of a living composer. These distinguished artists will discuss aspects of their music and inspirations.
The music of Turkish/American composer Kamran Ince bridges Anatolia and Balkans to the West. The energy and rawness of Turkish and Balkan folk music, the spirituality of Byzantium and Ottoman court music, the tradition of European art music and the extravert and popular qualities of the American psyche are the base of his sound world. These ingredients happily breathe in cohesion, and they spin the linear and vertical contrasts so essential to his music forward.
Hailed by The Los Angeles Times as “that rare composer able to sound connected with modern music, and yet still seem exotic”, Ince was born in Montana in 1960 to American and Turkish parents. He holds a Doctorate from Eastman School of Music, and currently serves as Professor of Composition at University of Memphis and at MIAM, Istanbul Technical University. His numerous prizes include the Prix de Rome, the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Lili Boulanger Prize, and the Arts and Letters Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters . His Waves of Talya was named one of the best chamber works of the 20th Century by a living composer in the Chamber Music Magazine.
Leading orchestras throughout the world perform his works. Concerts devoted to his music have recently been heard at the Holland Festival, CBC Encounter Series (Toronto), the Istanbul International Music Festival and Estoril Festival (Lisbon). His music is published by Schott Music Corporation.
His latest projects include Songs With Other Words (2014) (recomposing of selected movements from Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words) for Spark and Schleswig-Holstein Festival; Abandoned (2014), a dramatic work (mini opera) for Opera Memphis’ Ghosts of Crosstown Project; Fortuna Sepio Nos (2013), a piano trio for Arkas Trio; it’s a nasreddin (2012) for Berlin Counterpoint and Istanbul Festival; Zamboturfidir (2012) for Yurodny (Dublin) and Hezarfen (Istanbul); Symphony in Blue (2012) for Istanbul Modern Museum; Still, Flow, Surge (2011) for Present Music’s 30th anniversary; Far Variations (2009) for Los Angeles Piano Quartet; Concerto for Orchestra, Turkish Instruments and Voices (2009) for the Turkish Ministry of Culture; Dreamlines (2008) to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Turkish Chamber of Architects (2008); Music for a Lost Earth (ambient music project) (2007); Gloria (Everywhere) (2007) for the Chanticleer Mass project; Turquoise (2005), a project of his various works arranged by him for the Netherlands Blazers Ensemble; and 5th Symphony Galatasaray (2005) in honor of the infamous soccer club’s centennial celebrations.
Five Naxos CD’s of Ince’s music have recently been released. They are Kamran Ince, Music for a Lost Earth, Galatasaray, Hammers & Whistlers, and Constantinople. His other CD’s include In White on Innova, Fall of Constantinople on Decca and Kamran Ince & Friends on Troy.
Ince’s Judgment of Midas, an opera in two acts, commissioned by Crawford Greenewalt to mark the 50th anniversary of Sardis/Lydia excavations, had its concert version premiere in April 2013 in Milwaukee with Present Music and Milwaukee Opera Theatre with Ince conducting.