Meet the Artists

Elischa Kaminer

Elischa Kaminer is a composer, performer and theatre maker based in London and Frankfurt am Main. His work is located on the intersections of music theatre, sound art, electronic, concert, queer- pop and yiddish musics. Recent works often take on the form of continuously evolving electro- acoustic landscapes as well as musical and choreographic scores, moulded into and out of the specific performers’ very own artistry, humour, physicality and musicality and include scores for soloists like Mayah Kadish (La Vaghezza), Sara Cubarsi (Musikfabrik), Joseph Havlat (Ensemble x.y), guitarist An-Laurence Higgins and improvising trombonist Alex Paxton.

His work has been showcased at theatres, concert halls and festivals across Europe, the U.S., Canada and Korea including performances at Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, KORZO Theatre Den Haag, Nationaltheater Mannheim, Schauspiel Hannover, Europâisches Zentrum der Künste Hellerau, Kampnagel Hamburg, Mousonturm Frankfurt, Sophiensäle Berlin, LOFFT Leipzig, Impulsefestival, Favoritenfestival, Wildwechsel Festival, Berlin Peforming Arts festival, Podium Festival, Musik21 Festival Hannover, 918 Bathhurst Toronto, the Roy. O. Disney Hall Los Angeles and the Sungmisan Theatre Seoul.

Recent commissions include works for No Hay Banda, Montreal, The Rest is Noise NL, Canada based Ensemble Atlantica, NAS Duo, The Arch Sinfonia London, the Toronto Creative Music Lab and the Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin (KNM) as well as several collaborations with choreographers, video, fine artists and performance collectives including LIGNA (Klasse Kinder!, 2018), CHICKS freies performancekollektiv (SOFT SKILLS, 2018, GARDEN OF CHICKS, 2018, LOVE ME HARDER, 2018 and WHAT THE FUCK, 2020), Olivia Hyunsin Kim (Yellow Banana, 2019 and Miss Yellow and Me, 2017), Pinsker und Bernhardt (PAARE SIND FEINDLICHE INSELN) Viola Bittl (Musik mit Viola, 2016), Daliah Ziper (Hotel Kummer, 2016) and Julia Novacek (reisemobil-stellplatz 1230 / wien, 2015).

As of 2020, Kaminer is artistic director of London based experimental music group Ensemble x.y. From 2016 - 18, he was Associate Composer with the ensemble and co-curator of x.y FM, a monthly radio show on Resonance Extra commited to comissioning and broadcasting new music, sound and radio art. Since 2021 Elischa Kaminer is Associate Composer with UK based record label NONCLASSICAL.

From 2010-2014 Kaminer studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music, London followed by postgraduate studies at the Institut für Angewandte Theaterwissenschaften, Gießen supported by the Gerhard C. Starck Stiftung scholarship.

His work for the concert hall, exhibition spaces, film and theatre is often informed by both a playful approach as well as a critical reflection of the structural importance (or non-importance) of both musical and non-musical parameters involved in a live-performance setting. These may include thoughts on the interrelation of sound, choreography and scenography, as well as taking into account political and economic implications (and conditions) of the production and rehearsal process.

Sarah Nemtsov

Sarah Nemtsov was born in 1980 in Oldenburg and studied composition in Hanover and Berlin with Nigel Osborne, Johannes Schöllhorn and Walter Zimmermann. She has received numerous awards and scholarships, including the Busoni Composition Prize of the Berlin Academy of the Arts, the Deutsche Musikautorenpreis of the GEMA and won the international RicordiLAB composition competition. She collaborates with renowned ensembles and orchestras (HR Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Sinfonieorchester, RSO Vienna, WDR Orchestra, Ensemble Musikfabrik, ensemble modern, ensemble mosaik, Ensemble Adapter, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, ensemble recherche, Klangforum Wien, Basel Sinfonietta etc.) and her works are performed at internationally renowned festivals - such as the Donaueschinger Musiktage, Darmstadt Summer Course, Wien modern, ECLAT, Ultraschall, Holland Festival, Musica, Bregenz Festival, Munich Biennale and many more. Nemtsov's music captivates through sensitively sounded setups, through complex and energetic textures, musical stratifications, interactions between acoustic instruments and electronics, as well as references to other arts and other media. In the summer semester of 2014, Sarah Nemtsov taught composition at Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Cologne, in 2018 she taught composition at Haifa University as a DAAD guest lecturer. In 2021 she was tutor for composition at Darmstadt Summer Course. In 2020, she was nominated for the Opus Klassik Prize in the category "Composer of the Year" Her catalogue includes more than 100 compositions in almost all genres. Several of her works are published by Ricordi. DIE ZEIT wrote about her opera SACRIFICE (premiered 2017 at the Opera House Halle): "Sound becomes space becomes time becomes reality". Her new opera – OPHELIA (2020-2021) with a libretto by Mirko Bonné – will be premiered in 2023 at Saarländisches Staatstheater.

www.sarah-nemtsov.de

Alex Paxton

Alex Paxton (1990) is a composer and improvising-trombonist based in the UK. Alex’s work draws upon a range of classical, experimental, electronic & folk music traditions to create a unique and explosive voice. He was elected to the 9th International Composition Seminar, commissioned by Ensemble Modern (ILOLLIPOP), has won a Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize (OD ODY PINK’d), Dankworth Jazz Prize, Leverhume Art Scholar Prize (NOW WE are DUH-DUR) and Harriet Cohen Music Award (PURPLE-TREE TAPESTRY) and appointed as London Symphony Orchestra Panufnik Composer, SPAKE represented the Orchestral section of the International Society of Contemporary Music, commissioned by Wigmore hall and had music performed at BBC Proms. He is a commissioned contributor to John Zorn’s Arcana X 2021. He has performed his music as a soloist with leading orchestras including: Ensemble Modern (ILOLLIPOP), London Sinfonietta, The Philharmonia Orchestra (UK), Royal National Scottish Orchestra & Ensemble x.y. Further works include pieces for the London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Kammer Klang, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Psappa, National Youth Jazz Orchestra (UK). His albums to date as a composer: MUSIC for BOSCH PEOPLE on Birmingham Record Company/NMC label, and HAPPY MUSIC for ORCHESTRA (2021/2022). He is featured on the Non-Classical (CORNCRACKDREAMS) Listen Pony Label (TELLSONG), Everest Records (SOMETIMES VOICES) and leading Spotify playlists. His Dreammusics uniquely combines electronic sounds with leading virtuosic improvising-musician / notated-musician soloists. Alex has extensively written music for community settings and for young performers. He has worked across the UK as an educator in creative-music settings and is composition tutor on the National Youth Orchestra (UK).

Alex studied as a scholar at the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music in London. “In a dark, time this music will make you smile...This is the most joyous sound I’ve heard in ages!” New York Times

Joseph Havlat

Joseph Havlat was born in Hobart, Australia, and studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London under Prof. Joanna MacGregor from 2012 -18, where he received his BMus and MMus with distinction, including awards for exceptional merit in studentship and the highest recital mark for a postgraduate pianist. Joseph has performed in major concert venues around the UK and in Europe, America, Japan and Australia as a soloist and as part of chamber groups. In 2019 he was made a Young Artist at St. John’s Smith Square where he is to give recitals in the 2020/21 season, and also was awarded the first prize in the keyboard section of the Royal Overseas League Music Competition. The same year he was also made a Young Artist of the Oxford Lieder Festival alongside fellow Australian mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts- Dean, with whom he works regularly in both standard and contemporary Classical spheres. He is a keen sock enthusiast and chamber musician, performing frequently with multiple other groups -Tritium (clarinet) trio, Trio Derazey and the two-piano Duo Ex Libris, as well as frequently collaborating in many other chamber music scenarios. He is also a member of the LSO percussion ensemble with whom he has released a CD on the LSO Live label, including the premiere recording of John Adams’ two-piano work ‘Roll Over Beethoven’. Passionate about modern and contemporary music, he is a founding member and original artistic director of contemporary music collective Ensemble x.y. During his time studying he gave performances of concertos by Ligeti, Messiaen, Stravinsky and others, which has led him to collaborate with such composers as Michael Finnissy, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Gerald Barry and Thomas Larcher. He is also an avid composer, having written for the aforementioned ensembles, and views his compositional work as intrinsic to his musical development and his most important form of artistic expression. Current post-Covid projects include the performance and subsequent recording of all of Finnissy's piano concertos with conductor Jack Sheen, a short album of piano music by William Marsey, and the writing of a song cycle on texts of Australian poet Gwen Harwood. In real life he enjoys playing and watching cricket, hiking, playing video games and producing music of questionable artistic quality with his three siblings.

Mayah Kadish

Mayah Kadish was born in Rome and grew up in London. At university she studied philosophy at King’s College London, working for several years as a translator. She obtained her Master's degree as a violinist from the Royal Academy of Music, London, and studied the baroque violin with Enrico Onofri in Sicily. Mayah plays internationally mainly with baroque and contemporary repertoire, equally at home in both worlds. She has played as soloist and chamber musician in halls such as the Barbican, Royal Albert Hall, Wigmore Hall, LSO St Luke's, Lisbon's Centro Culturel de Belem, Paris Philharmonie and the Köln Philharmonie amongst others. She is principle violinist of the Berlin-based genre-fluid contemporary ensemble s t a r g a z e directed by André de Ridder, principle violinist of London-based contemporary group Ensemble x.y, and has worked as soloist and Concertmaster with the European Union Baroque Orchestra. She writes music and often works collaboratively on making new music. Mayah has worked extensively with groups such as the Pomo d'Oro, London Contemporary Orchestra, London Contemporary Orchestra Soloists, London Sinfonietta, Holland Baroque Society, and worked as guest concertmaster with Oxford Baroque and Contro Corrente Orchestra. She has worked alongside artists such as Lars Ulrik Mortensen, Reinhard Goebel, Giovanni Sollima, Amandine Bayer, Enrico Onofri, Alina Ibramigova, Rachel Podger.