Optical Identity

ANNEX 3

Optical Identity

Biographies

CATHIE BOYD

Director and Concept

Cathie was born in Belfast and moved to Glasgow in 1990 to gain a BA in Dramatic Studies at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. She founded Theatre Cryptic in 1994, and has produced and directed Bonjour Tristesse, Child Lover, Parallel Lines, Celle-la, Prologue, Electra, Journeys and Memories, Black over Red, Each… and Every Inch, Apocalypse, Tunnel Visions, Books of Silence, Trojan Women and The Paper Nautilus. Her work has involved numerous international collaborations and has been seen widely at Festivals across Europe and the Americas. Previous operas include, Gounod’s Faust (1997); Holt’s Who Put Bella in the Wych Elm, Sciarrino’s Infinito Nero and Kurtag’s Scenes from a Novel (Aldeburgh Festival and Almeida Opera), Britten’s Midsummer Nights’ Dream (2004). Cathie also produced an international multi-art form festival in 2000 titled Beckett Time.

Cathie also enjoys directing building openings, which has included the Royal Museum of Scotland (1998), Glasgow’s Imax Cinema/Science Centre (2000) and the Glasgow City Halls with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (2006). In 2006, Cathie directed the live interactive visuals for Stravinsky’s Firebird commissioned by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra with performances in Baltimore and Washington. Future projects include a Yannis Kyriakides opera titled An Ocean of Rain, with a libretto by Daniel Danis; and Jackie Kay’s Adoption Papers for European Broadcasting Union. In 2001, Cathie was made a Fellow of NESTA (National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts) to develop the visual staging of music through new technologies. She has also been awarded Outstanding Young Person Award, Junior Chambers of Commerce 2003 and European Woman of Achievement for the Arts 1999. Cathie is also on the Board of Trustees for Visiting Arts.

www.seeingmusic.co.uk

NG YU-YING

First Violin

Ng Yu -Ying embarked on his professional career as a violinist in the Singapore Symphony Orchestra after graduating with first-class honours from the Royal Academy of Music, UK, where he studied with Clarence Myerscough and Erich Gruenberg. He was awarded the Alex Templeton Prize, Roth Prize and Dominion Fellowship for his Graduation Recital. In 1997, Yu -Ying became a founding member of Singapore's first professional string quartet, which has performed to critical acclaim in America, Australia and Europe. Aside from chamber music performances, his collaborations with violist, Jiri Heger, have also brought him to the Czech Republic where he performed in concerts and in live broadcast on Czech television.

ANG CHEK MENG

Second Violin

Winner of the Singapore National Music Competition in 1985 and 1987, Ang Chek Meng went on to further his studies under a Singapore Symphony Orchestra Scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He studied under Jean Harvey, Erich Gruenberg, as well as members of the Amadeus Quartet. For his outstanding results, Chek Meng was awarded the Countess of Munster Trust Scholarship and graduated with honours. Chek Meng joined the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in 1991 and left seven years later to pursue his love for chamber music by becoming a member of the award-winning T'ang Quartet. The Quartet were appointed the first Quartet-in-residence at the Sheperd School of Music, Rice University, USA. There Chek Meng worked with world-renowned artists like Paul and Martha Katz of the Cleveland Quartet, Kenneth Goldsmith and Norman Fischer. As a member of the Quartet, Chek Meng has performed to critical acclaim at major venues such as the Aspen Music Festival, Tanglewood Festival, Music Mountain Chamber Series, Melbourne Festival and New Zealand Arts Festival as well as in engagements around Asia.

LIONEL TAN

Viola

Lionel Tan began viola studies under Jiri Heger and was awarded a scholarship to study at the Royal College of Music in London where he graduated in performance and pedagogy. He was awarded the Lionel Tertis Prize for outstanding performance. Lionel started his professional career playing the viola in the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. Aside from extensive experience gained from 11 years as a violist in the Orchestra, he has also established himself as a prize-winning soloist and chamber musician which has taken him all over the world. Lionel also studied the viola with Martha Katz and Karen Ritscher in the USA, and with Margaret Major, Christopher Wellington and Milan Skampa in Europe. As a member of the award-winning and critically acclaimed T'ang Quartet, he was a pupil of Paul Katz, Norman Fischer and Kenneth Goldsmith at the Shepherd School of Music, Rice University, USA.

LESLIE TAN

Cello

Leslie Tan, cellist of the internationally renowned T'ang Quartet has performed, both as a soloist and a chamber musician, to critical acclaim in major venues and festivals around the world. Some of these festivals include the Tanglewood and Aspen Festivals in the USA; the Melbourne and Port Fairy Festivals in Australia; the New Zealand Arts Festival; the Hong Kong Arts Festival; the Prague-Vienna-Budapest Sommerakademie and the Aarhuus Festival in Europe. His performances have also been broadcast by the BBC in London. In 1980, after only four years of cello studies, Leslie was awarded a scholarship to further his studies in London where he graduated from both the Trinity College of Music and the Royal College of Music. Leslie went on to the Tchaikovsky-Moscow State Conservatory as a graduate-assistant of Natalia Shahkovskaya. In the USA, he was a pupil of Paul Katz and Norman Fischer. Leslie was a cellist in the Singapore Symphony Orchestra for 13 years. In a career that has spanned almost 20 years, from orchestral to chamber and solo performances, he is very much soughtafter as a pedagogue as well as a performer. Leslie is also in demand as a collaborative artist with performers in other disciplines such as dance, theatre and pop music.

JASCH

Performer/Digital Artist

A double bass-player, composer and digital artist, Jasch is active in electronic and improvised music, jazz and contemporary music, performance and installation art as well as writing music for chamber-ensembles, theatre and film. His main focus is on works combining digital sound and images, abstract graphics and digital video, electro-acoustic music or mixed-media projects for the stage and in installations. Jasch has been invited as guest artist and lecturer to various cultural and academic institutions where he has presented installations, performances and concerts in galleries, clubs and at festivals throughout Europe, North America, Australia and Japan such as Résonance Festival (Paris), Sonar Festival (Barcelona), Transmediale Festival (Berlin) and the Holland Festival (Amsterdam). In addition to performing, Jasch is also a Researcher at the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology of the Zürich School for Music, Drama and Dance.

www.jasch.ch

JASON ONG

Set Designer

Jason Ong began his debut as an independent designer when he exhibited at the Salon Satellite, Milan in 2005. Since then, he has gained the President’s Young Talent award in 2005 and the Design Singapore Council’s 20/20 designer in 2006. Prior to that, he spent six years in KNTA Architects in Singapore and London before attaining his Master in Design with Distinction from Domus Academy in Milan in 2002. His accolades include the Grand Prix award for the Chair for Daydreamers at the Nagoya International Design Competition in 2000. Besides developing his own work, Jason lectures part-time in 3D foundation and furniture design at the Nanyang Technological University and the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.

Jason Ong’s work thrives in the conceptual realm of design, in the attempt to explore new ways to perceive furniture. He has the tendency to see furniture as a reflection of human beings, where it becomes a playful medium to express the many human relationships, ideals or idiosyncrasies. In addition to exploring concepts, part of his work is centred on developing new typologies of furniture forms.

www.jienshu.com

BAYLENE

Costume Designer and Maker

BAYLENE was founded by Li Baylene, who was born in Taiwan and grew up in New Zealand. Baylene started designing for a leading New Zealand Fashion house before moving to Singapore in 2002. She soon launched the BAYLENE Label in September 2003. Baylene Fashion Gallery, opened in November 2003, reflects the character of Baylene and her designs, an unmistakable chic-ness augmented by the unexpected. The shop houses the Baylene collection and a selection of interesting and beautiful accessories by local designers. By May 2004, Baylene showed her first collection in the Mercedes-Benz Australian Fashion week. That same year, BAYLENE was elected "Best Ready-To-Wear Designer" by Cleo. Baylene has since solidified her presence in the local fashion scene with her continually non-conformist designs that's combined with wearability.

Baylene's potent mix of androgyny & inventive tailoring has earned her the Mercedes-Benz Asia Fashion Award in 2005, which confirms and heightens the label's potential and international appeal. Currently, her collection can be found in certain multi-label fashion houses in Malaysia, Taiwan and Japan, with plans to expand into Australia in the near future. The designer herself remains fully involved in the business, overseeing every development within the company and as a result, BAYLENE retains a personal touch often lost in fashion houses. Baylene is also a Heineken Innovator.

www.baylene.com

NICH SMITH

Lighting Designer

Nich Smith has worked on a diverse range of lighting projects over many disciplines, from theatre, opera, dance, and visual arts, to architectural lighting design. His architectural lighting designs advocate radical new night time interpretations of our urban landscape and frequently introduce creative lighting techniques and apply new technologies in unusual applications. Recent lighting designs include urban regeneration lighting projects (Beardmore Park Steam Hammer for Kelvin Clyde Greenspace, Glasgow), and performance lighting (The Paper Nautilus for Theatre Cryptic). Nich is currently working on lighting for the John Murray Archive at the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh.

www.nichsmith.com

KEVIN VOLANS

Composer

Kevin Volans has been described as “one of the planet’s most distinctive and unpredictable voices”. (Kyle Gann, Village Voice)

He was born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa in 1949. After completing a Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, he went on to study in Cologne, principally with Karl Heinz Stockhausen, later becoming his teaching assistant. In the mid-70s his work became associated with the “Neue Einfachheit” (New Simplicity)—the beginnings of post-modernism in music. In 1979 following several field recording trips to Africa, he embarked on a series of pieces based on African compositional techniques, which quickly established Volans as a distinctive voice on the European new music circuit.

In 1986 Kevin Volans began a productive collaboration with the Kronos Quartet. White Man Sleeps for string quartet (1986), Hunting: Gathering (1987) and The Songlines (1988) were all written for them, and given performances at festivals including Salzburg Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, Berliner Festwoche, Tokyo Inkspot, Adelaide Festival, Next Wave Festival (New York) and New Music America, bringing his work to a very wide audience. The Kronos discs, White Man Sleeps and Pieces of Africa broke all records for string quartet disc sales. The latter was No.1 on the US Classical and world music charts for 26 weeks, outselling all but Pavarotti.

In the 1990’s, Volans gave increasing attention to writing for dance, collaborating with Siobhan Davies, Jonathan Burrows, Shobana Jeyasingh in Britain as well as numerous other companies around the world. In 1999, the South Bank hosted a 50th birthday celebration of his work in the Queen Elizabeth Hall. John Allison wrote in The Times “When it comes to composers, only a few today could be called true originals, and Kevin Volans is one of them”.

Lately, he has turned his attention to writing for orchestra, as well as collaborating with visual artists. He has recently completed a theatre piece with the South African artist William Kentridge, for singers, actor, shadow puppets and string quartet, commissioned by the Chicago Institute of Contemporary Art. Recent commissions include a double string quartet for the Duke Quartet, London, a Concerto for Double Orchestra for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, a piece for the Ulster Orchestra, a piano concerto for Marc-Andre Hamelin, a new string quartet for the Kronos Quartet and an oboe concerto for Bart Schneemann.

ROLF WALLIN

Composer

Norwegian composer Rolf Wallin is an exceptionally versatile musician, having distinguished himself not only as one of Scandinavia's leading composers today, but also as a performance artist and, early in his career, as a trumpeter in ensembles spanning early music to experimental jazz and rock. As a composer he freely combines computer-generated systems and mathematical formulae with intuitive approaches, and the complex yet very plastic textures of his music are reminiscent of composers such as Xenakis and Ligeti.

His most important fractal-based compositions are Onda di ghiaccio (1989) and Boyl (1995), Chi (1991), and Stonewave (1990), ning (1991), and Solve et coagula (1992). Several of these works have received international acclaim—most notably the percussion work Stonewave, which received the Best Work Award at the 1992 ISCM World Music Days in Warsaw. Wallin has also developed a harmony-generating principle: ‘crystal chords’ based upon a 3D harmonic model, where three key intervals are constantly repeated. The resulting synthetic scales give Wallin a broad and varied harmonic palette. Wallin has employed crystal chords in a number of recent works including Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra (1996) and Tides (1998), Ground (1997) and Appearances (2002).

Wallin’s work list includes both instrumental and electro-acoustic works, absolute music and stage music; his continuous crossing of borders between genres and styles has resulted in a number of fruitful cross-fertilisations. His most recent works have received great critical acclaim: the radio opera LautLeben, for the jazz singer Sidsel Endresen and 4-channel tape (1999), and the chamber opera Manifest (2000), based on a selection of early modernistic manifestos. These works experiment freely with language and with the much sonority of the human voice, alone and in combination with other media.

FRANGHIZ ALI-ZADEH

Composer

Franghiz Ali-Zadeh was born in Baku, Azerbaijan. She studied the piano and composition at the Baku Conservatory, from which she graduated as a pianist in 1970 and as a composer in 1972. Between 1973 and 1976 she was Kara Karaev’s research assistant, and in 1989 completed her doctoral thesis, ‘Orchestration in Works by Azerbaijani Composers’. In 1976 she began her association with Baku Conservatory, where, until 1990, she was Professor of Contemporary Music and the History of Orchestral Styles. Since 1999 she has lived primarily in Germany. As a pianist, Franghiz has performed at festivals throughout the world, including