IlSuono Contemporary Music Week

Casa
Italia
Città di Castello
IlSuono Contemporary Music Week

An annual summer festival for composition, performance, and electronic music in Italy!

ilSUONO Contemporary Music Week is a grassroots new music initiative founded in 2016 and being run by the Italian ensemble Suono Giallo and Greek composer Theocharis Papatrechas.

1. ilSUONO’s core objective is the provision of up-and-coming young composers with a unique forum in which to hone their skills through
private instruction and composition seminars with renowned composers from elite ins

titutions, and performance opportunities by high-leveled instrumentalists.

More specifically, ilSUONO forms a summer music composition course in which the participants composers:
• work privately with the composers-in-residence both during and prior to the forum
• participate in master-classes and organized discussions held by the composers-in-residence around topics concerning composition and electronic music
• work closely with the instrumentalists of both the ensemble-in-residence and guest ensembles
• write new works to be extensively rehearsed and premiered by the ensemble-in-residence
• have extra performance opportunities by the guest ensembles

2. Additionally, the initiative aims at celebrating the art of contemporary music by the involvement of various instrumentalists and ensembles around the globe, who are being invited to Città di Castello to present their performative perspectives and artistic aesthetics.

As an aftermath, the two pillars of this scheme lock together, forming an entire week full of intense musical activity.

Theocharis Papatrechas, artistic director
Michele Bianchini, executive director
Simone Nocchi, president of the organization

25/06/2026

2026 Performance Participants | Sinthomo Ensemble

Sinthomo Ensemble was founded in 2025. The name comes from a key concept in Lacanian late writings: sinthome, an original invention of the subject to keeps together its three dimensions, real, symbolic, imaginary and remain psychically consistent through a creative act. The project has received support from composers since its very beginning, commissioning new works to Giorgio Colombo Taccani and Davide Tramontano. We are applying to various festivals for our first project, Cuts of Light, coming from wider repertoire research which will be the base to further programs and collaborations.

Alessia Scilipoti (Italy) - flute Alessia Scilipoti - flutist
Lorenzo Pusterla (Italy) - piano Lorenzo Pusterla
Stefano Giudice (Italy) - percussion Stefano Giudice

24/06/2026

2026 Composition Participant | Anian Wiedner
Anian Wiedner

Anian Wiedner is a London-based composer and organist originally from the Alpine countryside in southern Bavaria. His music often explores the spatial possibilities of music through physical, temporal and harmonic space. He is equally at home in writing for voice(s) as well as instrumental and electro-acoustic music. He has collaborated extensively with dancers and choreographers from various institutions, including the London Contemporary Dance School and the Central School of Ballet.
During his studies in composition and organ at the Royal College of Music and the Guildhall School he has won a number of prestigious prizes and awards, namely the Worshipful Company of Musicians Silver Medal and the RCM Large Ensemble Composition Competition (2022 for his orchestral piece Sesquialtera, 2023 for his Violin concerto Waterfall Night).
Important composition teachers were Julian Anderson, Paul Newland, Simon Holt, Alison Kay, and Jonathan Cole. He deepened his studies at the Dartington International Summer School, the Impuls Academy, as well as the Mixtur Festival where he received tuition from Carola Bauckholt, Lisa Streich, Caspar Johannes Walter, Rebecca Saunders, and Gavin Bryars.
His works have been performed and recorded widely by ensembles such as EXAUDI, Plus-Minus, and the Fidelio Trio. His musical development has kindly been supported by the Gerald Finzi Trust, Help Musicians Fast Track, and the Guildhall School Trust.
In 2025 his music sees performances in Austria by the Müncher Flötenduo, in Cardiff by ORA Singers, at Festival Mixtur in Barcelona by Soprano Jessie Chen, and at the University of Leeds in collaboration with Leeds Song.

Anian has composed a brand new piece for ilSUONO, titled “Tiefer” for bass flute, percussion, and toy piano, that will be premiered by participating ensemble Sinthomo!

23/06/2026

2026 Composition Participant | Yu Xu

Yu Xu is a composer based in New York City. She works across acoustic instruments, live electronics, and interdisciplinary performance, developing projects in collaboration with dancers, sculptors, directors, and visual artists. Her pieces are presented in both concert settings and site-responsive contexts, where sound engages directly with movement, objects, and architectural space. Sound is treated as material, placed, moved, layered, and reconfigured across environments, so that each work changes according to its performers and site. Xu studied composition with Dr. Reiko Füting at the Manhattan School of Music, and with Prof. David Garner at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Yu has composed a brand new piece for ilSUONO, titled “The Feather Never Falls” for baritone saxophone, double bass, and electronics, that will be premiered by resident ensemble Suono Giallo!

22/06/2026

2026 Composition Participant | Julian Stuart-Burns
Julian 🤠

A Rochester and NYC-based composer & pianist, Julian Stuart-Burns writes music that focuses on the juxtaposition of discrete musical objects, sharp and unexpected contrast, and on drawing connections with literature and current events. His writing is informed by labor organizing and radical politics, with recent works drawing heavily on leftist perspectives of Cuban revolutionary history. He is inspired deeply by sounds, images, and writings related on the one hand to crystals, shimmers of light, and comic relief, and on the other to desolation, tragic prophesy, and apocalypse. Julian’s music has been featured at NYCEMF, VIPA, soundSCAPE, and Longy Divergent Studio. He has been awarded the 2025 Bernard Rogers Memorial Prize for his solo piano sonata Toward the Surface, and his sinfonietta piece In a Few won a Belle S. Gitelman Award in 2024. Julian’s work has been performed by Mivos Quartet, loadbang, Musica Nova, and the Eastman Graduate Composers’ Sinfonietta. His music has been presented at the Sheen Center in New York City, the Paul Hindemith Center in Blonay, Switzerland, and Field Recital Hall in Chicago. An avid teacher, Julian has taught composition and music theory at Eastman School of Music and Eastman Community Music School. He has also given lectures on orchestration to classes of undergraduate students at Eastman. Having received his M.A. in composition from Eastman, Julian is currently a labor organizer at 1199SEIU, the United States’ largest healthcare union. He also maintains a studio of in-person and zoom students in composition.

Julian has composed a brand new piece for ilSUONO, titled “If We Don’t Get It” for tenor saxophone, fixed media, and live electronics, that will be premiered by resident ensemble Suono Giallo’s saxophonist Michele Bianchini Michele Bianchini

21/06/2026

2026 Composition Participant | Wan Heo
Wan Heo

Wan Heo is a Korean-born composer based in Chicago. Her works have been performed internationally in South Korea, Germany, Italy, Singapore, Spain, and throughout the United States. Her percussion solo Unveiled Future is published by Alfonce Production.
Wan’s music has been commissioned and featured by Darmstädter Ferienkurse, SEAMUS, Yarn/Wire, Unheard-of Ensemble, line upon line, New Music on the Point, highSCORE Festival, and the Valencia International Performance Academy (VIPA), among others. She received an Honorable Mention for the Christine Clark/Theodore Front Prize in the IAWM New Music Search.
Her doctoral dissertation explores the vulnerability of South Korea’s sonic environments through field recordings made at Buddhist mountain monasteries. This research has been supported by two research awards from Northwestern University: the Graduate Research Grant and the Buffett Institute’s International Dissertation Research Travel Grant. Works from this project have been presented at NYCEMF, the Composition in Asia Conference, the Society of Composers National Conference, the North American Saxophone Alliance Regional Conference, the National Student Electronic Music Event (NSEME), and the University of Miami’s Composition Colloquium.
Wan is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Wake Forest University. She holds a B.M. in Composition from Ewha Womans University and an M.M. in Composition from Florida State University. She is currently ABD in the Ph.D. program in Composition and Music Technology at Northwestern University, where she works under the guidance of Alex Mincek, Stephan Moore, and Jay Alan Yim.

Wan has composed a brand new piece for ilSUONO, titled “Awakening” for double bass, harp, and percussion, that will be premiered by participating ensemble Le Réveil Profond!

20/06/2026

2026 Performance Participants | Le Réveil Profond

Le Réveil Profond, founded in 2025, is a modular ensemble specializing in late-20th-century and contemporary music. Its core formation consists of harp, double bass, and percussion. The ensemble’s artistic activity includes close collaboration with living composers, as well as the development of original arrangements and improvisation practices, exploring new timbral possibilities within its instrumentation.

Rocco Castellani (Italy) - double bass Rocco Castellani
Virginia Vignera (Italy) - harp Virginia Vignera
Alessio Cavaliere (Italy) - percussion Alessio Cavaliere

19/06/2026

2026 Composition Participant | Kei Wing Chan
Kei Wing Chan

Kei Wing Chan is a composer and multimedia artist from Hong Kong, currently based in New York City. Her music draws inspiration from nature, the humanities, and psychology, with a distinctive focus on timbre shaped through spectromorphology andspatialization. Her work spans solo, chamber, orchestral, electroacoustic, and sonic art installations. Chan’s music has been performed in Festival Mujeres en la Música Nueva (FMMN), LunART Festival, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF), Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival (IWCMF), the Etching Festival (ECCE), Mixtur Festival, and so on.
Chan is a graduate student at Stony Brook University, where she studies with Daria Semegen, Daniel Weymouth, and Margaret Schedel. She completed her Master of Music degree at Mannes School of Music and received her Bachelor of Music degree in music composition and theory at Xinghai Conservatory. Her primary teachers were D**g Yan, Yujia Zeng, Joan La Barbara, and John Mallia.

Kei has composed a brand new piece for ilSUONO, titled “insomnia” for double bas and electronics, that will be premiered by resident ensemble Suono Giallo’s bassist Giacomo Piermatti!

18/06/2026

2026 Composition Participant | Hermod Bentsen
Hermod Bentsen

Hermod Bentsen is a Norwegian composer based in Oslo. In his portfolio one finds solo, chamber and orchestral music. He has also created electronic music, music for video and interdisciplinary artistic expression, such as experimental music theatre and performance.Inspiration for his music is drawn from a variety of art forms and philosophical, psychological and neuroscientific theories related to art and music. Curiosity, expectation, friction, ambiguity and playfulness are central playfulness are central themes in his artistic output.
His works have been performed at Festspillene i Bergen, Ultima festival, Ung Nordisk Musikk and Les Bestiviés in France. Among the ensembles he has written for, one finds Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, SISU, Microtub and Rugle, an ensemble (with flute, saxophone, percussion and double bass) that he co-founded in 2020.
His education is from the Norwegian Academy of Music (NMH), where he received a bachelors and masters degree in composition.
During his bachelor, he spent a year at Universität der Künste in Berlin as an exhchange student. In the spring of 2024 he did an internship in composition in Paris with Marco Stroppa as mentor.

Hermod has composed a brand new piece for ilSUONO, titled “Onsets” for alto saxophone, double bass, and percussion, that will be premiered by resident ensemble Suono Giallo!

17/06/2026

2026 Composition Participant | Genie Alvarado
Genie Alvarado

Composer and multi-instrumentalist Genie Alvarado enjoys exploring nuances in sounds through her composition. With a rich performance background–including various orchestral, jazz, marching band, chamber, and choral ensembles–her experience has informed her unique perspective on timbre, influencing her approach to composition. She is interested in incorporating movement and physicality into her works in order to explore changes in sonorities.
Alvarado’s works have been performed in venues such as the Conservatorio di Musica Benedetto , Jordan Hall, and Mixon Hall and with performers such as Thomas Weaver, Nina Dante, and Dalia Chin. She also co-directs the student-led monthly concert series Tuesday Night New Music at New England Conservatory, where she is currently studying Composition under the tutelage of Efstratios Minakakis. She has also had past experience with Nick DiBerardino, Reiko Füting, and Maya Miro Johnson.

Genie has composed a brand new piece for ilSUONO, titled “Alula Animina” for flute, violin, and piano, that will be premiered by participating ensemble Trio Limen!

16/06/2026

2026 Composition Participant | Benjamin Marshall
Ben Marshall

Queensland Music Awards finalist Benjamin Marshall is a Meanjin based composer whose works have been described as being “distinguished by maturity, humour and well-thought-out structure” (Glissando, 2025). Having received the Silver Harris & Jeff Peck Composition Prize in 2024, Benjamin’s current works are centred around the world of Composed Theatreand how writing in this area helps inform personal compositional understanding. Benjamin specialises in writing for specific performers and spaces, working collaboratively with ensembles through the entire compositional and rehearsal processes to create unique live experiences. In 2025 he was appointed as co-artistic director of Brisbane-based organisation Nexus New Music.
His premieres for 2025 include performances in the USA, Vienna and Queensland from new music ensembles such as Ensemble Platypus and the winner of the Australian Lieder Competition. Benjamin is also a member of Meanjin based jazz trio 2Nil and experimental three-piece slump. When not composing, Benjamin conducts the St Andrew’s Community Orchestra with an emphasis on programming new Australian works. Benjamin was awarded his Bachelor of Music (Honours) with first class under the supervision of Dr Gerardo Dirie in 2025 from Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University.

Benjamin has composed a brand new piece for ilSUONO, titled “Wingspan - III Episodes for Solo Percussionist”, that will be premiered by resident ensemble Suono Giallo’s percussionist Laura Mancini!

Indirizzo

Via Marconi 5
Città Di Castello
06012

Sito Web

http://www.ilsuonoacademy.com/

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