2024 COMPOSITION CONTEST

WINNER: Artur Akshelyan, Sillage

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Left Coast Chamber Ensemble is thrilled to perform Sillage during our 2025-26 season.

Artur Akshelyan begun his composition studies in Armenia at the Komitas State Conservatory with V. Adjemian. In 2008 he moved to Switzerland where he studied with Michael Jarrell and Luis Naon at Haute Ecole de Musique of Geneva. He participated in masterclasses with Ivan Fedele, Kaija Saariaho, Stefano Gervasoni, Sofia Gubaidulina and others. His works have been commissioned from various institutions and ensembles: Ensemble Contrechamps (Geneva), Radio France (Paris), “Orpheus Competition” (Switzerland), Dilijan Chamber Music Series (USA), Festival Flagey (Brussels), Foundation Minkoff (Geneva), Ensemble Pre-Art (Zurich) and others.

Most recently, he has been the winner of the Boston New Music Initiative’s 12th Annual Commissioning Competition. His compositions have received various international prizes among them the Basel Composition Competition, Geneva Composition Competition Grand Prix, Gaudeamus Muziekweek honorable mention (Amsterdam), Pre-Art (Zurich) and other awards. His music featured in various workshops and festivals, such as June in Buffalo 2024 etc. Among the interpreters of his music were Ensemble Modern Lemanic, Ensemble Intercontemporain (Paris), Trio Saeitenwind, Arditti Quartet (London), Ensemble Divertimento (Milan), Ensemble Insomnio, Basel Symphony Orchestra etc. Since 2018 he taught at the Yerevan State Conservatory and American University in Yerevan. As a conductor he collaborated with Ensemble Assonance. Currently, he is a doctoral candidate at the Florida State University.

Honorable Mention:

EDUARDO SOUTULLO
FUNERAL MUSIC FOR BLACK VICTIMS

Eduardo Soutullo is a Spanish composer and filmmaker. He was the recipient of the Spanish Ministry of Culture's National Prize in Music (composition) in 2023. The jury awarded the prize to Soutullo for the unanimous international recognition of his music especially his orchestral production, highlighting the premiere in Saint Petersburg of his antiwar cantata "The lament of sunflowers”.

He began his musical education at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Vigo. Later, he moved to Madrid and to Paris completing his studies in Harmony and Composition with Isabelle Duha (Conservatoire d'Issy les Molineaux-Paris XIII).

He has studied musical composition with David del Puerto, Jesús Rueda, José Luis de Delás Franco (Köln Conservatory), Richard Steinitz (Huddersfield University) and with Cristobal Halffter and Tomás Marco (Villafranca del Bierzo, Spain).

He has a master's degree from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and has a Doctorat (PhD) from the Universidad de Vigo (thesis about Spanish contemporary music).

He has been a professor at the Porto's Superior School of Music and Performing Arts (ESMAE).

He has been composer in residence at Spanish Academy in Rome in the course 2019-2020.

In February 2022, after the beginning of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, he began the composition of Threnus Helianthuses (The lament of sunflowers, a direct reference to Ukraine's national flower), a vocal-symphonic work whose lyrics are anti-war verses of the prominent Ukrainian poet Lesya Ukrainka (1871-1913) translated into English. He submits the score to the "XVI Open composers competition named after Andrey Petrov" held in Saint Petersburg. Against all odds, the work is selected as a finalist and gets its premiere on September 15, 2022 at the Grand Hall of the St. Petersburg Academic Philharmonic by the St.Petersburg Symphony Orchestra winning the third prize of the competition.

On March 7, 2024, he premieres his work Elegía (Elegy) in Madrid at the XXII concert “In memoriam” in tribute to the Victims of Terrorism presided over by Their Majesties the King and Queen of Spain. This concert is held annually on the eve of March 11, the day on which the 193 victims of the attacks perpetrated in Madrid on that date in 2004 are commemorated, being broadcast live to the entire world from the National Music Auditorium by the RTVE Symphony Orchestra (Orquesta Sinfónica de Radio Televisión Española).

He is also the author of the novel "Olozábal, el último zarzuelista, en el Madrid de la movida" published on Amazon and Smashwords.

Past winners:

  • 2023 Gilad Cohen A Dark Matter

    • Honorable Mention: Paul Novak entwining

  • 2022 Tomàs Peire-Serrate Five Haiku

    • Second Place: Daniel Sabzghabaei At any rate II. باقی مانده "what remains”

    • Honorable Mentions:

      Paul Novak a string quartet is like a flock of birds

      Aaron Levin Snow Fragments

  • 2020 Sarah Westwood's Things You Don’t Yet Know You Feel

    • Honorable Mention:

      Felipe Tovar-Henao: ...de lo voluble...

  • 2019 Sarah Gibson: I prefer living in color

    • Honorable Mentions:

      Luk Wai Chun Vincent: Bian lian

      Pascal Le Boeuf: Imp in impulse

  • 2018 Charles Peck: Sunburst [video]

    • Honorable Mentions:

      Jack Frerer: Downloads

      Daniel Harrison: Give Up the Ghost

      Stephen Yip: Luminosity Etude

  • 2017 Chiayu Hsu: Rhapsody Toccata [video]

  • 2016 Melody Eötvös: House of the Beehives [video]

  • 2015 Christopher Stark: Piano Quartet 2014 [video]

  • 2014 Felix Leuschner: Krieg ohne Schlacht [video]

  • 2013 Michael-Thomas Foumai: Scat

  • 2012 Ryan Carter: too many arguments in line 17

  • 2011 Mike Solomon: Anonymous Student Compliment or Complaint

  • 2010 Steven Snowden

  • 2009 Matthew Barnson: String Quartet

  • 2008 Stephen Feigenbaum: Boiling Point for string quartet

  • 2007 Moritz Eggert

  • 2006 Carl Schimmel

  • 2005 Justin Merritt

  • 2004 Claude Baker

  • 2003 Bruno Ruviaro

  • 2002 Tamar Muskal

  • 2001 Gabriel Vine

  • 2000 Yehuda Yannay

photo credit (strings): Jeanette Yu