New Music and contemporary stuff

Website of the composer
Verena Weinmann

Biography

Verena Weinmann (* 1994 in Frauenfeld, Switzerland) is a composer and activist based in Barcelona and Switzerland. They did their post-graduate studies in composition with Mauricio Sotelo at ESMuC in Barcelona from 2019 to 2021. They successfully completed their Bachelor’s degree in composition with Michel Roth at the Basel Music Academy (FHNW) in July 2019.
Their orchestral piece „Hills of Torreón“ was awarded the special jury prize of the international composition competition Rychenberg Competition on September 9th, 2020 and was recorded and performed by the Musikkollegium Winterthur under the direction of Thomas Zehetmair.
2017 commissioned to compose «Der Grosse Misthaufen» for Ensemble SoloVoices; Cooperation among others with saxophonist Marcus Weiss, recorded by Radio SRF2 Kultur, Gare du Nord, in the concert «Lobet die Nacht».
Since 2018 co-founder and project manager of the association Vocal Ensemble NeuSang.
Since 2015 participation in various projects of the festival ZeitRäume Basel (Biennale for new music and architecture). 2019 collaboration among others with composer Hannes Seidl in the ZeitRäume project «Überläufer *».
2015 – 2019 keyboarder of the Latin Folk Rock band «Mondsucher».

At the age of 10, Verena began taking private piano lessons, which they continued with Carl Wolf in 2009 and intensified as part of their preparatory studies at the Winterthur Conservatory. They received their first classical composition lessons there in 2014 from Roman Digion. At the beginning of 2015 they began to take an interest in politics and since then have published several articles for the magazine «der Funke», «L’Octubre», «Lucha de clases», as well as one article in the Swiss music magazine «Dissonance». Among others, they visited Master classes from Salvatore Sciarrino, Georges Aperghis, James Saunders, Misato Mochizuki, Elena Rykova and Martin Matalon.

Media

«Hills of Torreón» for the Rychenberg Competition. Based on the foto series «Wounds of Violence» by Adél Koleszár.
Orchestra: Musikkollegium Winterthur
Direction: Thomas Zehetmair

Überläufer* – Eine performative Klang-Raum-Komposition (2019 UA) – 70´ (TRAILER) from Innenarchitektur und Szenografie on Vimeo.

Collective effort composition coordinated by Hannes Seidl

«Nachtregen» 10.6.2019, Music-Academy Basel:
Voice: Aimée Hege, Samuel Cook, Livia Spring
E-Bass: Jonas Marti
E-Guitar: Diego Aguirre, Marius Schnurr
Live-Electronics: Arev Imer