School of Music Visiting Artist Series
Music: Richard Barrett Richard Barrett (Swansea, 1959) is internationally active as composer and performer, and also teaches at the Institute of Sonology in Den Haag and at the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts at Leiden University. His work encompasses a range from free improvisation to intricately-notated scores, and from acoustic chamber music to innovative uses of digital technology. Recent compositions include "close-up" for electroacoustic sextet, written for Ensemble Studio6; "everything has changed/nothing has changed" for orchestra, given its premiere by the SWR Symphony Orchestra conducted by Peter Rundel in February 2017; and the first installment of "natural causes", a work in progress for the ensemble Musikfabrik, given its premiere in May 2017. Current projects include new works for ELISION, with whom Richard Barrett has been working regularly since 1990, and for the Los Angeles-based ensemble gnarwhallaby. Ongoing performative collaborations include with Paul Obermayer (in FURT), Evan Parker, and several other improvising ensembles such as SKEIN (with Achim Kaufmann, Frank Gratkowski, Wilbert de Joode and others) and Colophony (with Jon Rose and Meinrad Kneer). Richard Barrett’s principal composition teacher was Peter Wiegold, and he currently resides in Belgrade. His work as composer and performer is documented on over forty CDs, including seven discs devoted to his compositions and nine by FURT.
Milana Zarić combines orchestral, ensemble, and solo harp performance connecting the classical idiom to contemporary sensibility and new technologies. Organizer as well as performer, she aims to create new bridges between the traditional roles of composer, performer and improviser. Milana has been the principal harpist of Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra since 2005. She is active as a soloist and chamber musician. She is the artistic director of Ensemble Studio6, leading Serbian contemporary music group. Milana regularly works with composers on new music, enriching the harp repertoire by commissioning solo pieces, as well as harp with ensemble and/or electronics. Apart from her involvement in contemporary composed music, she also improvises, in various groups or in a duet with Richard Barrett. Milana holds degrees from University of Arts in Belgrade, Trinity College of Music, London and Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, Netherlands.