Michael Ellison

Trommelsprachen – Languages of Drums (2017)

Commissioned by Siemens Foundation and Hans Neuhoff for Eight Bridges Festival, Cologne, Germany. (90-100’) Based on drum languages of India, Turkey and the Middle East, merged into a contemporary music context. For four percussion soloists and voice (V. Suresh, Fresco Zohar, Mısırlı Ahmet, Bodek Janke, Mariana Sodovska), with mixed cross-cultural ensemble.

Triple Concerto (2017-18)

for violin, viola, piano and chamber orchestra. Commissioned by Birsen Ulucan and premiered with Ayşen Ulcan, violin, Özcan Ulucan, viola/violin, Birsen Ulucan and Hungarian Chamber Orchestra in Budapest, dates tbd in Istanbul and Budapest, 2017-18 (15-18’)

Demon-desire (2017)

for bass and Bb clarinet, flute and cello. Commissioned by Ensemble Variances. April 24, 2017, St. George’s Bristol. (8’)

Virgo Israel Ornare (2016)

for cathedral choir
Commissioned by Emma Hornby and ERC for Old Hispanic Office project. Based on 9 century notation of Iberian (pre-Gregorian) chant.   Premiere: Christ Church Choir, Oxford, Stephen Darlington, director.   Bristol Cathedral, Febraury 28, 2017. (8’)

Deniz Küstü – The Sea-Crossed Fisherman (2016)

Total Music Theatre in four scenes. Simon Jones, Libretto/director. Zeynep , choreography. NOHlab, video performance.   Premiered June 11, 2016, Istanbul Music Festival, Hezarfen Ensemble, Gwion Thomas, Robyn Allgra Parton, Damian Thantrey, Louise Innes, Adam Green, Michael Rafferty, conductor. Based on 1978 novel of Yaşar Kemal. (75’)

Vision of Black Elk for Contralto and 5 instruments (2015)
29 September 2016 8.30PM
Festival d’Ambronay / Opéra de Lyon
Ensemble Variances and Noa Frenkel
http://festival.ambronay.org/2016/Representation-424/La-Voie-de-la-beaute.html

Vision of Black Elk for Contralto and 5 instruments (2015)
23 November 2016, 8PM
Opéra de Rouen / Chapelle Corneille
Ensemble Variances and Noa Frenkel
http://www.digitick.com/la-voie-de-la-beaute-concert-chapelle-corneille-3t-rouen-23-novembre-2016-css5-operaderouen-pg101-ri3985019.html

Vision of Black Elk for Contralto and 5 instruments (2015)
10 January 2017, 8PM
Théâtre de Cornouaille, France
Ensemble Variances and Noa Frenkel
http://www.theatre-cornouaille.fr/news/81-e-16-17/508-la-voie-de-la-beaute?print=1

Vision of Black Elk for Contralto and 5 instruments (2015)
12 August 2017
Ensemble Variances and Noa Frenkel
Cartinthische Festival, Austria
http://www.carinthischersommer.at/en/

Vision of Black Elk for Contralto and 5 instruments (2015)
Arsenal de Metz/Reins Opera. France 24-28 January 2018.
Ensemble Variances and Noa Frenkel
http://www.ensemblevariances.com/fr/projets/8-projets.html

Light into Shadows (2016) and Elif (2003)
3-5 April, 2017
Le Volcan/Le Fitz
Le Havre, France
Ensemble Variances with Neva Özgen and Serkan Halili
http://www.levolcan.com/

Light into Shadows (2016) and Elif (2003)
7 April, 2017
Théâtre du Château, Eu, France
Ensemble Variances with Neva Özgen and Serkan Halili
http://www.ensemblevariances.com/en/

Invocation-Meditation-Allegro
21 October, 2016, 20.00
Malta, Presidential Palace Cem Önertürk, Hezarfen Ensemble

Invocation-Meditation-Allegro
22 October, 2016 19:30
Malta, St. James Creativity Center, Cem Önertürk, Hezarfen Ensemble
http://www.kreattivita.org/en/event/concert-mediterranean-curve-hezarfen-ensemble/
https://www.facebook.com/TurkEmbValletta/

ERC Beyond East and West Workshops with Turkish Instruments and Hezarfen Ensemble
2-4 November
Istanbul: MIAM Centre for Advanced Studies in Music
Workshops with Turkish makam and Anatolian Folk instruments and voices,
Hezarfen Ensemble

24-27 November 2016 in NRW
North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW)
Platform/Ensemble for Transcultural New Music NRW (Matthias Mainz, project Director)

2 December 2016
Istanbul: MIAM Centre for Advanced Studies in Music
Workshops with Turkish makam instruments
Hezarfen Ensemble, members of Klangforum Wien
In association with Austrian Cultural Forum, Istanbul

28-30 May 2017
Istanbul: MIAM Centre for Advanced Studies in Music
Conference ‘Makam and Beyond’
Workshops with Turkish makam and Anatolian Folk instruments and voices
Hezarfen Ensemble concert of MIAM composers

Autumn 2017
Platform/Ensemble for Transcultural New Music NRW (Matthias Mainz, project Director)
Workshop with Musikhochschule Köln and ICEM, Folkwang Universität Essen. Concerts at Konzertforum Ruhr

23 February, 2014

Colston Hall
Bristol New Music Festival
Bristol Ensemble performs Duo (2001)
http://www.colstonhall.org/shows/bristol-new-music/

7 September, 2014

New Orchestral Movement: Aquarium (2014)
*Commissioned by New Music Southwest Contemporary Responses to Saint-Saens ‘Carnival of the Animals’
Bristol Ensemble – St. George’s, Bristol, UK http://www.nmsw.org.uk/events/season-finale/

31 October, 2014 

String Quartet #3 (2013-UK Premiere)
Brodowski Quartet gives the UK premiere of this compact, 11 movement, dynamic quartet journey based on North American and Turkish riffs, subtitled ‘Fiddlin’
*Commissioned by Hal Myers, Arizona Friends of Chamber Music and Nova Chamber Music Series for Fry Street Quartet http://www.brodowskiquartet.com/diary/

February 11. 2015

New work for Ensemble Variances and Contralto Noa Frenkel *Commissioned by Radio France
Festival Présences
America, America http://www.ensemblevariances.com/en/projects/america-america.html

June 2015

New Work for Hezarfen Ensemble, Ensemble Variances, ney, kemençe, Ud and kanun, ‘Sufi Gardens’

The Fry Street Quartet returns to NOVA for another exhilarating event featuring the music of Haydn and the premiere of a new work by Michael Ellison. The FSQ collaborates with NOVA Artistic Director Jason Hardink in Dvořák’s lively and sentimental Piano Quintet.

Haydn Quartet in G Major, opus 76, no. 1
Ellison String Quartet No. 3 (World Premiere)
***
Dvořák Piano Quintet in A Major, opus 81

Robert Waters, Rebecca McFaul violin | Bradley Ottesen viola
Anne Francis Bayless cello | Jason Hardink piano

(This program will be repeated at Utah State University in Logan on January 14.
Click here for more info.)

Say I am You-Mevlana (2012) premiered in Rotterdam and the 40. Istanbul Music Festival last season, will be released this month by the UK label Metier!  The opera outlines 13th century sufi Mystic Jelaluddin Rumi’s spiritual transformation and encounter with wandering dervish Shams of Tabriz.  Featuring VocaalLAB, Hezarfen Ensemble and Lucas Vis.  Available in stores and mail order beginning Jan. 28, 2014.
Read Review

Say I am You CD

Istanbul-June 24

VocaalLAB Nederland and Hezarfen Ensemble played the Turkish Premiere of Ellison’s long-awaited opera Say I am You on the 40. Istanbul International Music Festival to a sold out house in Aya irini, on the grounds of Topkapı palace.  With stunning performances by of VocaalLAB and its three soloists Gunnar Sigurdsson, Arnout Lems,  Ekaterina Levanthal, and with Hezarfen Ensemble conducted by Lucas Vis, critics described the experience as ‘border[ing] on the supernatural.’     Say I am You integrates Turkish instruments and Eastern vocal aesthetics into chamber opera in an unprecedented way.  The video decór of Tessa Joosse provided critical hints about the action of the piece, as it was sung in concert version, with the video depicting scenes from the passionate encounter between Mevlana and his spiritual mentor, Shams of Tabriz that forms the backbone of the story.

ISTANBUL-May 8 On June 17, 2011, soprano Christie Finn and mezzo-soprano Arlene Rolph, with Istanbul’s groundbreaking Hezarfen Ensemble, premiere Michael Ellison’s newly composed setting of Coleridge’s Kubla Khan (2011) on the 39. Istanbul International Music Festival.  On a concert entitled The Grammar of Dreams, set in the unusual setting of the heart of an old electricity generating facility Santral Istanbul, the premiere of Kubla Khan marks the first time Ellison’s work has been performed on the world-renowned festival.  Coupled with Kaija Saariaho’s Grammaire des Reves (and also including Turkish premieres of Pögun, Sciarrino, and Tanaka) the concert turns Santral Istanbul into the site of a mulit-sensory experience where the audience enters, as it were, directly into the centre of a pulsating brain in the midst of dreams and opium visions, as it were, with the Hezarfen Ensemble.