As well as being the founder and artistic director of Les AMIS Concerts, Michael Pepa is the composer-in-residence of the Canadian Sinfonietta - www.canadiansinfonietta.com, a member of the Canadian League of Composers, SOCAN, and an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre.

 

Mr. Pepa has composed over 80 works for solo instruments, chamber groups and orchestra. Most have been commissioned, performed and broadcast here in Canada as well as U.S., Netherlands, France, Austria, Serbia, Croatia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania. His music has been performed by international groups such as the Filarmonica “Banatul” Timisoara, Romania; Hungarian Philharmonic Chamber Ensemble, Budapest; Utrecht’s Conservatorium Orchestra, Netherlands; SOUNDSTAGE CANADA at the Zagreb Biennale (’81) of Contemporary Music; CANTUS ENSEMBLE of Zagreb, Croatia. Notable international artists such as Claire Bernard, Alexandra Gutu, Jovan Kolundzija, Nada Kolundzija, and Canadian artists Scott St. John, Martin Beaver, Barry Shiffman, Lynn Kuo and Rivka Golani have included Pepa’s works on their programs. St. Lawrence Quartet commissioned two of Pepa’s four quartets and in 1996 premiered Quartet No. 4 in Paris, France. Penderecki Quartet performed the same work in April 2009 at Music Biennale Zagreb, Criatia, Belgrade, Serbia and Timisoara, Romania.

 

Pepa’s recent performances include Duo for Violynn and Winoncello – written for Lynn Kuo and Winona Zelenka – and Duello for 2 pianos – written for Duo Cornelia (Galina Zisk and Jean Kim). Prior to embarking on its Canadian tour, PORING QUARTET performed String Quartet No. 1, “NEKUIA” in Zagreb recording May 5, 2010 as the Croatian premier of this work.

 

He has just completed his first Violin Concerto, which was commissioned by the Filarmonica Banatul Timisoara, Romania. The premiere will be on September 24, 2010 in Timisoara with soloist Gabriel Popa. Canadian artists, Violinist Lynn Kuo, pianist Marianna Humetska and mezzo-soprano Katarzyna Sadej will be joining Michael Pepa and the Philarmonic Society of Lviv, Ukraine, at the concert on September 28, 2010 devoted entirely to his works.

 

String Quartet No. 1, subtitled NEKUIA, was inspired by an ancient Greek rite by which spirits were called up from Hades and questioned. In Book Eleven, A GATHERING OF SHADES, Odysseus performs the rite. “From this multitude of souls, as they fluttered to and fro by the trench, there came a moaning that was horrible to hear.”

HOMER – THE ODYSSEY

 

Berislav Šipuš

Director of the Ensemble, composer, conductor and educator

Berislav Šipuš (Zagreb, b. 1958), pursued his art history studies at the Faculty of Arts and Letters along with the composition studies with Stanko Horvat at the Zagreb Academy of Music, from which he graduated in 1987. He continued with his studies in composition with Gilbert Bosco in Udine (1986) and with François-Bernard Mâche and Iannis Xenakis at the Electronic Studio UPIC in Paris (1987). He studied conducting with Vladimir Kranjčević, Željko Brkanović, Krešimir Šipuš and Milan Horvat.

From 1979 to 1982 he was a pianist-in-residence and repetiteur at the Croatian National Theatre Ballet in Zagreb; from 1987 to 1989 he taught music theory at the Elly Bašić Music College in Zagreb; from 1988 to 1989 he worked as a pianist and repetiteur for the Bermuda Civic Ballet, and from 1989 he worked as a programme producer for the Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall. That same year he began his cooperation with the Teatro alla Scala in Milan as a pianist and repetiteur in the ballet (1989-1999), orchestra conductor for ballet productions (1997-1999), pianist and repetiteur and conducting assistant in the opera (1999-2002). He was concurrently active in Zagreb, particularly at the Academy of Music as a teacher of theoretical subjects (1988-1989). In 1998 he became assistant professor in the Department of Composition and Music Theory, and associate professor in 2005. He worked as a producer of the Music Biennale Zagreb in 1987 and 1989. He has been its artistic director since 1997. From 2001 to 2005 he was the managing director of the Zagreb Philharmonic. He has been managing the Cantus Ensemble since its foundation in 2001.

He has conducted all over Croatia, in Bulgaria, Albania, Germany and Italy, and has received many Croatian and foreign awards for his compositions. Among these are the Rector’s Award of the University of Zagreb (1985), the first prize at the 15th International Jeunesses Musicales Competition (Belgrade, 1985), SKOJ Seven Secretaries’ Award (1985), Music Biennale Zagreb Award (1987), Udine Festival of Contemporary Music Award (1987), Croatian Music Institute Award (1988), The Days of Yugoslav Music Award (1989), Vjesnik’s Josip Štolcer Slavenski Award (1995), Boris Papandopulo Award of the Croatian Composers’ Society (2002), Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of France (2004).

Berislav Šipuš created the concept for the String Quartet several years ago when he came across the songbook under the title The Forest of Purple Trees by Mexican actress and writer Itzie Zeron Gutierrez. He imagined it as a five part cycle inspired by two songs from the songbook. The first two parts of the future Second String Quartet, Invocation of Yearing and The Song of the Lonely, were performed for the first time by the Sebastian String Quartet in 2005. Several years later Berislav Šipuš edited the frist two parts and composed the third one. As a work in progress the three part Second String Quartet will continue growing until it becomes a complete unit of five parts and, according to Berislav Šipuš's concept, it will be integrally performed as the world premiere by the String Quartet Porin.

Dmitry Shostakovich (1906 - 1975) belongs to the generation of composers trained principally after the Communist Revolution of 1917. He graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory as a pianist and composer, his First Symphony winning immediate favour. His subsequent career in Russia varied with the political climate. The initial success of his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District (later revised as Katerina Ismailova) was followed by official condemnation, emanating apparently from Stalin himself. The composer's Fifth Symphony, in 1937, brought partial rehabilitation, while the war years offered a propaganda coup in the Leningrad Symphony, performed in the city under German siege. In 1948 he fell foul of the official musical establishment with a Ninth Symphony thought to be frivolous, but enjoyed the relative freedom following the death of Stalin in 1953. Posthumous information suggests that despite appearing to conform with official policy, Shostakovich remained very critical of Stalinist dictates, particularly with regard to music and the arts. He occupies a significant position in the 20th century as a symphonist and as a composer of chamber music, writing in a style that is sometimes spare in texture but always accessible, couched as it is in an extension of traditional tonal musical language.