Yannis Kyriakides (1969)
Yannis Kyriakides was born in Limassol, Cyprus in 1969 and as a result of the military occupation in 1974 emigrated with his family to Britain. After travelling for a year with his violin in the near east, learning traditional music, he returned to England to study musicology at York University, later being drawn by the music of Louis Andriessen to move to The Netherlands, with whom he studied under at the Hague Conservatory. At that time he also had the inspiring opportunity to collaborate as composer on three projects with the maverick conceptual sound artist Dick Raaijmaakers and the director Paul Koek. He currently lives in Amsterdam.
As a composer he strives to create new forms and hybrids of media, synthesizing disparate sound sources and exploring spatial and temporal experience. He has focused in the majority of his work on ways of combining traditional performance practices with digital media. The sensory space where music happens is a particular preoccupation, and for this end a way of bypassing the conventional structures of how music is presented is sought. The question as to what music is actually communicating is also a recurring theme in his work and he is often drawn to the relation between emotion and language and how that defines our experience of music.
He regularly composes works for ensembles such as ASKO (NL), Icebreaker (UK), Ensemble Integrales (D), and MAE (NL) , of which he is the artistic director. Other collaborations include MusikFabrik (D), Orkest de Volharding (NL), Nozferatu (UK), Palmos (Gr), London Sinfonietta (UK), LOOS (NL), Percussion Group Den Haag (NL), Zephyr Quartet (NL), Esprit Ensemble (CA), Nsemble (RU), Ensemble Cantus (Cr), and others. As an improviser he is involved in the Amsterdam electronic improv scene, he has a regular duo with Andy Moor (the Ex) called Red v Green, and is a member of the dance-music improvisation groups Magpie Music Dance, and Co-Inc.
His has written over fifty compositions, of which recent large scale works include: Strobo (30') for six percussionists, glass and stroboscopes; Scape (80') for video and ensemble ; Spinoza (or I am not where I think myself to be) (90') music theatre; Subliminal: the Lucretian Picnic (45’) ensemble, video, live electronics; Lab Fly Dreams (25’) BBC commission for ensemble and electronics, the Buffer Zone (60’) music theatre, Escamotage (70’) music theatre (FNM Staatsoper Stuutgart) and Wordless (50’) 12 electronic portraits for headphones and PA.
Upcoming projects include a music theatre work on a new text by Daniel Danis with director Cathie Boyd of Theatre Cryptic (Glasgow), a multi-media piece in collaboration with video artist HC Gilje for MusikFabrik (Koln)/ZKM (Kalsruhe), and a suite of pieces based on dreams of the blind.
In September 2000 he won the Gaudeamus composition prize for his composition a conSPIracy cantata – which was regarded by The Wire magazine as ‘a modern classic in the making’. ‘Wordless’ was awarded an Honorary Mention in the Prix Ars Electronica 2006. Together with Andy Moor and Isabelle Vigier he founded and runs the CD label for innovative new electronic music, UNSOUNDS. He is artistic director of the MAE, a nine piece ensemble, and is a member of the composition faculty at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague.
