Samy Moussa (Canada)


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Samy Moussa is a conductor and composer born in Montreal on June 1, 1984. He has collaborated regularly with a number of orchestras and ensembles, among them the Ensemble Modern, Neue Vocalsolisten of Stuttgart, Finland’s Avanti! Chamber Orchestra, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the CBC Radio Orchestra, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the Orchestre national de Lorraine in France and the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. He is currently Music and Artistic Director of the INDEX Ensemble. In November 2011, Samy Moussa will make his Leipzig conducting debut with the MDR Sinfonieorchester and in Frankfurt with the Ensemble Modern. Samy Moussa studied composition and conducting at the Université de Montréal, where his principal teacher was José Evangelista. In 2004 he studied conducting in the Czech Republic with Paolo Bellomia. Two years later he was invited to study in Finland with Magnus Lindberg and Kaija Saariaho as part of the international Summer Sounds Festival, where his music was programmed and discussed. He took part in several master classes with Peter Eötvös, Oliver Knussen and Mark André among others. After finishing his studies in Montreal, Samy Moussa settled in Germany. He has studied composition there with Matthias Pintscher at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München and graduated in 2011. In 2008, the Acanthes centre in Metz, France, invited him to study with Salvatore Sciarrino, and shortly afterward the Voix Nouvelles composition course at the Fondation Royaumont, near Paris, invited him to study with Brian Ferneyhough. He has studied privately with Pascal Dusapin in 2010 and 2011. His 2008-09 season has included the premiere of Gegenschein (2009) and Zodiakallicht (2009) by Kent Nagano and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal; Polarlicht (2008) by the CBC Radio Orchestra in Vancouver under the direction of Alain Trudel; the premiere of Fragment sur l’Orestie, scène for 2 sopranos and instruments (2008) in Paris; a portrait concert dedicated entirely to him by the Munich Biennale in the series Klangspuren, where he conducted the premiere of a commission from the city of Munich called Rondeau for Ensemble (2009); the premiere of Rondeau II (2009) for string trio, a commission from the Siemens Art Program; and Cyclus for Orchestra (2007) on tour with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada and now available on DVD. During the 2009-10 season, Samy Moussa saw the premiere of his new opera L'autre frère at the 12th Munich Biennale. He is currently assistant conductor to Johannes Kalitzke with the hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt and with the Ensemble Modern. Samy Moussa lives in Paris.