Oscar Strasnoy

Oscar Strasnoy (born November 12, 1970) is a French-Argentine composer, conductor and pianist.[1] Although primarily known for his twelve stage works, the first of which Midea (2) premiered in Spoleto in 2000, his principal compositions also include a secular cantata and several song cycles.
Oscar Strasnoy was born in Buenos Aires and studied piano, conducting and composition there at the Conservatorio Nacional Superior de Música (with Aldo Antognazzi and Guillermo Scarabino), at the Conservatoire de Paris (with Guy Reibel, Michaël Levinas and Gérard Grisey), where he won in 1996 a Premier Prix à l’Unanimité (first prize) and the Hochschule für Musik, Frankfurt (with Hans Zender). He was the Music Director of the Orchestre du Crous de Paris (1996–1998). He was one of the founding recipients of the Grüneisen Foundation (Mozarteum Argentino) conducting scholarship,[2] and of the French Government Scholarship. In 1999 he was invited by Peter Eötvös to Herrenhaus-Edenkoben in Germany.[3]

Luciano Berio awarded him the 2000 Orpheus Prize for his chamber opera Midea (2) produced at the Teatro Caio Melisso in Spoleto in 2000 and at the Rome Opera in 2001.[4] He was also artist in residence at the Akademie Schloß Solitude in Stuttgart, in 2003 at the Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto (Institut français), and in 2006 at the Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Umbria, Italy.[5] In 2007 he received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship for Music Composition.[6] Radio France, in association with the parisian Théâtre du Châtelet, featured Strasnoy as the main composer of the Festival Présences 2012, a retrospective of most of his works in 14 concerts in January 2012.
Oscar Strasnoy has composed ten stage works, including operas performed at Spoleto, Rome, Reims, Rennes, Paris (Opéra Comique, Théâtre du Châtelet),[7] Hamburg, Bordeaux, Aix-en-Provence Festival, Teatro Colón of Buenos Aires); a live-accompanied silent film score for Anthony Asquith's Underground which premiered at the Louvre in 2004 and was subsequently played at the Cine Doré in Madrid, the Mozarteum Argentino, Kyoto, and Tokyo) and a secular cantata, Hochzeitsvorbereitungen (mit B und K). He also composed several pieces of chamber, vocal and orchestral music, including his song cycle Six Songs for the Unquiet Traveller which premiered in 2004 performed by the Nash Ensemble and Ann Murray in a concert to inaugurate the newly refurbished Wigmore Hall in London.[8]

In January 2012 a retrospective of his work in 14 concerts has been presented at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris as part of the Festival Présences of Radio France. Strasnoy's works are primaril published by Chant du Monde (Paris) and Billaudot (Paris). His opera Midea is published by Ricordi (Milan).