Yannis Kyriakides


Yannis Kyriakides is a Cypriot composer of contemporary classical music, and sound art. His music explores new forms and hybrids of media, synthesizing disparate sound sources and highlighting the sensorial space of music. He has focused in the majority of his work on ways of combining traditional performance practices with digital media, particularly in the use of live electronics. The relation between music and language has been explored in many pieces that utilize text films as a multimedia element.
WWW Official Site

Biography

Yannis Kyriakides was born in Limassol, Cyprus and emigrated to the United Kingdom when he was five years of age. He studied music at the University of York, and later moved to the Netherlands to study composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague with composers Louis Andriessen and Dick Raaijmakers. He is co-founder of the record label UNSOUNDS, and teaches composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague.
He has been associated with ensembles such as the Asko Ensemble, musikFabrik, Ensemble MAE, Icebreaker, Seattle Chamber Players, and Ensemble Integrales and musicians such as Andy Moor from the Ex and trumpeter Marco Blaauw. He also regularly collaborates with visual artists and filmmakers HC Gilje, Joost Rekveld and Stefanos Tsivopoulos, as well as choreographers Leine & Roebana, Guy & Roni, and theatre maker Paul Koek.
In 2007 he was featured composer at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and in 2011 at November Music in The Netherlands. His opera An Ocean of Rain opened the Aldeburgh Festival in 2008, and two of his sound installations were shown in the Dutch Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2011.

Prizes

Selected works

Oneiricon interactive scoreMusic for Viola viola soloLunch Music voices, percussion, electronics Words and Song Without Words cello, electronics, videoWavespace Octet with live electronics Paramyth violin, clarinet, piano, computer Memoryscape ensemble, soundtrack, text video for musikFabrikDisco Debris interactive sound installationSatellites ensemble and soundtrack for Seattle Chamber PlayersAn Ocean of Rain opera with Theatre Cryptic for the Aldeburgh FestivalThe Queen Is the Supreme Power in the Realm ensemble, live electronics, video with hc Gilje for musikFabrik/Koln TriennaleDreams of the Blind ensemble, soundtrack, text video for Ensemble MAEEscamotage music theatre for FNM Staatsoper StuttgartWordless sound installation for Argos FestivalSlow Wave Sleep string quartet, trombone quartet and electronics for Doelen Quartet and New Trombone Collective/ Gaudeamus FestivalThe Buffer Zone music theatre for Festival aan de WerfSubliminal: The Lucretian Picnic ensemble, soundtrack, video for ASKO ensemble / Festival in de BrandingLab Fly Dreams ensemble, electronics, video with hc Gilje, Icebreaker Ensemble / Orkest de Volharding/ BBC commissionSpinoza music theatre with Paul Koek, ZT HollandiaScape ensemble, soundtrack, video with Isabelle Vigier, Joost Rekveld for Orkest de VolhardingStrobo 6 amplified glass panes, stroboscopes, electronics a conSPIracy cantata 2 voices, piano, electronics Four Maggots for viola and double bass

Selected discography

  • "a conSPIracy cantata"
  • "The Thing Like Us", on Spinoza
  • "The Buffer Zone", audio theatre
  • "Wordless", 12 sound portraits
  • "Antichamber", Double CD of electroacoustic chamber music Resorts and Ruins Rebetika
  • "Folia" collaboration with guitarist Andy Moor
  • ''A life is a Billion Heartbeats''