Núria Giménez Comas
Composer
Biography / français / català / español
Núria Giménez-Comas is among the most internationally active and acclaimed composers from Spain, with a distinguished and well-established career. (S. Blardony, Sul Ponticello).
Composer of acoustic, mixed, and electroacoustic music, she has conducted in-depth reflections throughout her career on the work of sound space, dramaturgy, and form—always with a poetic approach to the use of technology. She takes part in projects at the intersection of theater and music, combining periods of research with collaborations across other disciplines. Her exploration of space through gesture has also led her to new inquiries in the field of dance, movement, and music always driven by an underlying dramaturgy.
She studied piano in Barcelona, then mathematics, before turning to composition, which she trained in with C. Havel. He immediately introduced her to pure electroacoustics and the importance of working with timbre, whether through timbral and harmonic expansion, timbral/harmonic cohesion, or the interaction between computers and the instrumentalist. After a final year with Mauricio Sotelo, she continued her studies at the HEM in Geneva with M. Jarrell, L. Naon, and E. Daubresse.
She was then selected to complete the Cursus 1 and 2 at IRCAM, with a project on sound stages (3D ambisonics) under the guidance of Hèctor Parra and in collaboration with the Royaumont Foundation.
She attended academies such as Schloss Solitude and Soundstreams Residency, with professors such as Chaya Czernowin, Brian Ferneyhough, and Kaija Saariaho.
Also deeply committed to working with orchestras, she collaborates with orchestras such as the OCG (Geneva Chamber Orchestra), Brussels Philharmonic, Geneva Camerata, OBC (Barcelona Symphony Orchestra), with conductors such as Michel Tabachnik, David Robertson, Duncan Ward, David Greilsammer, and Benjamin Shwartz, among others.
She has recorded a CD with two orchestral works for the L'Auditori label (Barcelona) with Sylvain Cadars as sound director.
Very interested in collaborative work, she has produced projects with other artists such as actors Michel Derville, Lambert Wilson, and Judith Henry, as well as with video artists and short films. She has worked on various projects with poet Laure Gauthier and director Anne Monfort.
She has realized a "Musique Fiction" project at IRCAM, a 3D spatialized acousmatic piece based on the text "Nostalgie 2175" by Anja Hilling, with stage director Anne Monfort. They also rewrote a stage version of the play with the Day for Night company, commissioned by IRCAM (CDN of Besançon-Franche-Comté, Théâtre national de Strasbourg, among others). She has also realized a chamber opera project based on the text "Shadow. Eurydice Says" by Elfriede Jelinek, commissioned by the Grand Théâtre du Liceu, Barcelona, with director Alicia Serrat and dramaturgy by Anne Monfort, in collaboration with the ELISAVA Higher School for the scenography.
The work "Llum i matèria. Pour Kaija" was created as part of the Ensemble Itinéraire's 50th anniversary at IRCAM's ESPRO, with lighting design by Christophe Forey.
This year, portrait concerts were held in Germany and Spain.
She has worked with renowned ensembles such as the Diotima Quartet, the Ensemble Contrechamps, the Vienna Klangforum, Ensemble Itinéraire, the Aleph Guitar Quartet, OBC, and Anssi Karttunen, and has received commissions from institutions such as Radio France, Grame, IRCAM, CNDM, BBVA Foundation, GMEM, the Auditori de Barcelona, and Le Vivier, with support from the Ministry of Culture and Communication, INAEM, and the SGAE Foundation, among others. She has been a winner of numerous competitions, including the Colegio de España (Paris)-INAEM Prize and the first prize in the Edison-Denisov International Competition.
In 2018-19, she completed the Artistic Research Residency at IRCAM/ZKM in collaboration with Marlon Schumacher on the subject of "Synthetic Sculptures in Space," finalizing her work with 3D installations in a promenade format.
She is also involved in the monitoring and development of the new orchestration software, Orchidea, for the Actor research project.
She gives masterclasses and lectures on mixed music, as well as on her work and research, at centers such as IRCAM, ZKM, ICST, the Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences, the HEM Geneva, and several universities (Paris 8, Lumière 2). She also collaborates on several educational projects with creations. She is also a professor of the "In Vivo Théâtre" workshop at the Académie Manifeste, alongside Anne Monfort, a project supported by IRCAM, T2G, the Day for Night company, and the CNSAD.