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Pierluigi Billone belongs to one of those rare magicians, who can suspend lineal time. One assumes with his music as if to enter a ritual space
Heinz Rögl about Pierluigi Billone
Pierluigi Billone

Born in 1960 in Italy, Pierluigi Billone lives in Vienna. He studied composition with Salvatore Sciarrino and Helmut Lachenmann.

Billone's music has been performed by ensembles such as Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Recherche, Instant Donné, Ensemble Contrechamps and others in festivals such as Donaueschinger Musiktage, Wien Modern, Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, Ars Musica Bruxelles, Festival d’Automne à Paris. His music is regularly broadcasted from the most important radios in and beyond Europe.

A close artistic collaboration binds him with the conductor Emilio Pomárico, with the percussionists Christian Dierstein and Adam Weisman, with the bassoon player Lorelei Dowling, the violist Barbara Maurer, the duo Stump-Linshalm and the singers Frank Wörner and Alda Caiello, all to whom he has dedicated solo pieces and studied important solo techniques.

His works received international awards such as the Kompositionspreis der Stadt Stuttgart (Stuttgart 1993), the Busoni-Kompositionspreis (Academy of Arts Berlin 1996) the Wiener Internationaler Kompositionspreis (Vienna 2004), the Ernst-Krenek-Preis (Vienna 2006), and the Kompositionspreis der Ernst-von-Siemens-Musikstiftung (Munich 2010).

From 2006 to 2008 Pierluigi Billone has been guest professor for composition at the Music University Graz, in 2009 at the Music University of Frankfurt, and from 2010 till 2012 at the Music University Graz. He is regularly invited as lecturer holding composition seminars at the Summer courses Darmstadt 2010, Impulse Academy Graz 2011, Tzlil Meducan Israel 2011, MCME International Academy Russia 2011, Summer courses Darmstadt 2012, PAS-E Venezia 2012, Impulse Academy Graz 2013, Tzlil Meducan Israel 2014, MCIC Madrid 2014, Summer courses Darmstadt 2014, IEMA-Ensemble Modern Academy, Conservatoire Paris, Conservatorium Amsterdam, University of Arts Wien, Harvard University Boston and the Columbia University NY.

The works of Pierluigi Billone appear on the Kairos, Stradivarius, Col-legno, Durian, EMSA and Ein_Klang labels.

...His radical methods have led him to explore unchartered sound worlds and to develop idiosyncratic instrumental and vocal techniques. Nevertheless, the concurrent roots of these sources of inspirations lie in an archaic world - a sacred universum - where, as if for him, the most progressive standpoint of modernity would be when music itself reaches its own phenomenal essence.
Phillipe Albéra about Pierluigi Billone

Notes

Text and citations reproduced with permission from www.pierluigibillone.com
Photograph: © Benjamin Chelly