METRIC IP 2025 Teachers
Meet the teachers of METRIC IP 2025!
Tilo Augsten, Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig
- Studies at the University of Music and Theater Leipzig
- Winner of the Weimar Improvisation Competition
- Long-standing activity as a pianist for dance and silent film
- Head of department for improvisation and ballet accompaniment at the Leipzig Academy of Music
Collaboration with musicians, choreographers and dancers: Eduardo Rivero-Walker, Edward Arckless; Thom Clower; Irina Pauls, Conny Bauer; Bertl Mütter; George Cremashi, Friedrich Schenker; Sandra Kreisler; Topsy Küppers,
Catalin Cretu, National University of Music Bucharest
Cătălin Crețu has a dual background as an electromechanical engineer and musician. Since 2008 he has been a scientific researcher at the Center for Electroacoustic Music and Multimedia and associate professor at the National University of Music in Bucharest, and since 2002 a member of the Romanian Composers and Musicologists Union. He studied multimedia composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg and holds a PhD in music from the National University of Music in Bucharest.
www.catalincretu.ro
David Dolan, Guildhall School of Music & Drama
David Dolan, an international concert pianist, researcher and educator, has devoted part of his career to reviving classical improvisation art and its performance applications. In his worldwide solo and chamber music performances, he returns to the tradition of incorporating extemporisations within repertoire in embellished repeats, eingangs & cadenzas, as well as improvised preludes, interludes and fantasies.
His research focuses on applying expressive narrative and creativity to repertoire and improvised solo & ensemble performances, in close collaboration with Imperial College, London.
Yehudi Menuhin’s response to his CD, “When Interpretation and Improvisation Get Together”, was: “David Dolan is giving new life to classical music.”
David is a professor of classical improvisation and its applications to solo and chamber music performance at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where he heads the Centre for Creative Performance and Classical Improvisation. He also teaches at the Yehudi Menuhin School and has been conducting masterclasses and workshops in major music centres and festivals worldwide.
Corinna Eikmeier, Musikhochschule Lübeck
Prof. Dr. Corinna Eikmeier studied Violoncello, Contemporary Music and Improvisation.
Her PHD-project is about movement quality and improvisation.
From 2017-2018 she was a guestprofessor for music pedagogy at BTU Cottbus/senftenberg.
Since 2020 she is professor for Instrumental- und Gesangspädagogik at Musikhochschule Lübeck.
Improvisation is her artistic and pedagogical focus. The research questions concentrate on questions of improvisation didactics. She has led many improvisation pedagogy projects and has been involved in the ”Improkultur” project in Hanover since 2015. In this project university students teach improvisation in teams in big hetherogen groups. Since 2023, this project has been continued as the Erasmus Plus project ”Everyone can improvise”. Research results from this project will be presented in the lecture, with particular emphasis on aspects of participation and inclusion. Artistic research already played a role in her PHD project and is currently being used by her as a tool for pedagogical research questions.
Pedro González Fernández, ESMUC
Pedro González is a Spanish violinist, composer, and researcher specialized in intermedia art projects. His compositions have been performed at festivals such as the Internationales Musikfest Hamburg, ICMC, Centre National de Création Musicale, Musica Festival, and Klangwerkstatt in Berlin. In March 2021, Pedro was appointed Professor for Contemporary Music at ESMUC in Barcelona. In 2023, he was the recipient of a Fulbright visiting scholar grant at CCRMA, Stanford University. He has also led seminars on multimedia at HfMT Hamburg and MHL Lübeck, and works as a freelance composer and violinist in Spain and Northern Germany.
Gerardo Gozzi, Royal College of Music (London)
Gerardo Gozzi is a composer, educator, performer, and conductor. His music is characterised by the use of microtonality, extended techniques and complex timbres. It stems from close collaborations with colleague performers and his own practice on clarinet and saxophone. Gerardo’s research in composition and improvisation focuses on exploring the concept of ‘spatial mental projection’ in the listener’s inner representation of the external world. Drawing from psychoacoustics while examining interactions between sound and space, his music uses instrumentation techniques that convey an illusory spatial perception. Gerardo has taught at the Royal College of Music (London) since 2018, where he is the Area Leader in Musicianship and Improvisation.
Nicola Leonard Hein, University of Music Lübeck
Nicola L. Hein is a sound artist, guitarist, composer, researcher in the field of music aesthetics and cybernetics and professor for Sound Arts & Creative Music Technology at the University of Music Lübeck.
He uses physical and electronic extensions of synthesisers and electric guitar, sound installations with motors/video projections/light, cybernetic human-machine interaction with interactive A.I. music systems, augmented reality, telematic real-time art, ambisonic sound projection, instrument making, conceptual compositions. Intermedia works with video art, dance, literature and other art forms. His works have been realised in more than 30 countries in North America, South America, Africa, Asia and Europe.
Charlotte Hug Raschèr, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts
Charlotte Hug is an inter-media artist, composer, improviser and teaching artist.
Having completed her studies in Fine Arts and Classical Music (voice & viola), she won various awards, including artist residences in London, Johannesburg, and Shanghai, was a f ellow at the Civitella Ranieri Foundation and «artiste étoile» at the world-renowned Lucerne Festival. Her trans-medial compositions and Spatial-Scores with Son-Icons are played internationally. Hug is a professor at the Lucerne University of Applied Science and Arts/Music and head of the international postgraduate studies program Creation & Scenario in Music at the Zurich University of the Arts. In addition to exhibitions, she is fully active as a performer, improviser, soloist, composer, and conductor at major festivals worldwide.
Diego Kohn, Zurich University of the Arts
Diego Kohn is a musician and educator specializing in musical improvisation. He currently teaches improvisation at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and the Zurich Conservatory (MKZ) and is an active member of METRIC, an AEC project focused on modernizing higher music education in Europe through improvisation. Holding degrees in composition, music performance with a focus on improvisation and music theory, he has lerned with notable improvisers such as Fred Frith and George Lewis. Diego has performed internationally and participates in various ensembles, including the Europa Meta Orchestra and the Insub Meta Orchestra. He has been invited to give workshops and lectures on musical improvisation at institutions across the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Based in Zurich, he directs projects like Creaziun, Offene Bühne Zürich and Listening Across the Borders, fostering intercultural artistic exchange.
Veli Kujala, Sibelius Academy of Uniarts Helsinki
Veli Kujala (b. 1976) has established himself as a distinguished interpreter of contemporary music on the accordion. In 2010, he earned his Doctor of Music degree with distinction from the Sibelius Academy. Kujala is a prizewinner of numerous international competitions, both as a soloist and as a composer in the field of classical music. His compositional repertoire spans a wide range of genres, including electro-acoustic and orchestral works. His composer portrait album, Hyperorganism (Alba Records), was nominated for Best Finnish Classical Album of the Year in 2016. In 2020, he was honored with the ”Contemporary Composer of the Year” award by the Finnish Music Publishers Association.
From the outset of his career, Kujala has been deeply involved in jazz and improvised music, regularly collaborating with leading contemporary improvisers such as Frank Gratkowski, Achim Kaufmann, Gianni Mimmo, Harri Sjöström, Sergio Armaroli and Giancarlo Schiaffini. Among his most active ensembles are Gourmet and Sestetto Internazionale.
As a soloist, Kujala has performed with renowned ensembles including the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, Gävle Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Insomnio, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, and the Tapiola Sinfonietta. He has worked with eminent conductors such as Stefan Asbury, Anna-Maria Helsing, Nicholas Carter, Hannu Koivula, Hannu Lintu, Susanna Mälkki, Ari Rasilainen, Dima Slobodeniouk, and John Storgårds. In 2022, Kujala made an appearance at the New York Metropolitan Opera in their production of Brett Dean’s Hamlet.
Kujala has collaborated extensively with contemporary composers and has premiered ten concertos, including four written for the microtonal accordion—a unique instrument he co-developed with composer Sampo Haapamäki. Altogether, he has performed over 80 works showcasing his exceptional versatility as an artist.
His performances span Europe’s major festivals and venues, and he has also toured the United States. Since 2005, Kujala has taught accordion and improvisation at the Sibelius Academy, where he became the head of accordion studies in 2020.
Frank Liebscher, University of Music & Theatre Leipzig
Dr. Frank Liebscher is a musician and music educator at the University of Music & Theatre Leipzig and the Music School of the Leipzig county. After completing preclinical medical studies, he fully transitioned to music, studying saxophone and arranging in Leipzig, Champaign-Urbana, and New York City. Liebscher holds a PhD in music education and maintains an international profile in both scholarly and artistic fields. He is artistic director of the 1st International Festival for Classical Saxophone, ”OVERTURE,” launched in February 2024 at the University of Music & Theatre Leipzig.
www.frank-liebscher.de
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@frankliebscher5125
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/frank.liebscher.923
Instagram: frankliebschersax
Alistair MacDonald, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
Alistair MacDonald is a composer, performer and sound artist, who designs computer-based sound processing instruments/environments to create uniquely rich, spatialised music and sound. Often collaborative, his work encompasses composing, field recording, live electronics, interactivity and improvisation. He makes standalone electroacoustic works, music for instruments and voices, music and sound design for dance, film and installation.
Arnas Mikalkenas, Lithuanian Academy of Theatre and Music
The main areas of activity of percussionist, pianist, composer and improviser Arnas Mikalkėnas are improvisational, jazz, and electroacoustic music. He is a creator who is attentive to sound, who is not afraid, even on the contrary, who strives to go beyond any musical framework to look for a unique relationship with music. A. Mikalkėnas dowry of musical experiences is particularly abundant. Not only classical and jazz music studies, but also echoes of musique concrète, rock, metal and other genres. One of the main groups in which A. Mikalkėnas plays is the free jazz trio ”Oak Birches”. During his career, this creator has played with Kenny Wollesen, Michael Moore, David Stackenas, Otomo Yoshihide, Kazutoki Umezu, John Butcher, Marc Ducret, Mikolaj Tzarzka, Kresten Osgood etc. He held concerts in Japan, Ukraine, Italy, Spain, France, Ireland, England, Scotland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Switzerland, Austria etc. His discography consists of 20 albums.
Liudas Mockunas, Lithuanian Academy of Theatre and Music
Devoting most of his time to performing with various international groups, Liudas is a multi-reeds player and composer, whose name stands for masterly performance and intriguing compositions. His ’natural’ idiom is an explosive mixture of free jazz, lyricism and expressionism combined with highly unconventional performance techniques. His in-depth exploration of the properties of sound and possibilities of harmonic series lead to an innovative and personal approach to wind playing techniques. This allowed him to escape from stylistic conventions and form an entirely original style, distinguished for multi phonics, expressive discharges of sound, over bends and unusual sound effects. Trained as a jazz and classical musician, Liudas Mockunas has a deep understanding and practical knowledge of both fields, the boundaries of which he traverses back and forth in his own compositions.
Bert Mooiman, Royal Conservatoire, The Hague
Bert Mooiman is a Dutch pianist, organist, improviser and music theorist. Since 2000 he has been a teacher of music theory, piano and improvisation and a research supervisor at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. In 2021 he obtained his PhD at Leiden University with the thesis ‘An Improvisatory Approach to Nineteenth-Century Music’, being the first Dutch pianist with a doctoral degree in music. He is involved in various international projects on improvisational education, and has been a member of the METRIC team from its earliest beginnings.
As a classical ‘keyboardist’, Bert Mooiman is a strong advocate for historical keyboard instruments. His instrument collection includes a clavichord, a square piano (1830), two historic grand pianos (1878 and 1900), a pedal harmonium and several French pressure wind harmoniums.
Libero Mureddu, Sibelius Academy of Uniarts Helsinki
Born in Milan in 1975 and based in Helsinki since 2003, he has studied composition at the Conservatory “G. Verdi” of Milan and music technology at the Centre for Music and Technology, Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki. He is currently doing his artistic doctorate at the MuTri Doctoral School at the Sibelius Academy. In his research, Libero Mureddu investigates the role of embodied knowledge in a free improvisation performance, and how this knowledge can be observed, analysed, and used to develop free improvisation languages. Libero Mureddu’s doctorate is generously supported by the Kone Foundation.
Active as a teacher, he teaches contemporary-free and electroacoustic improvisation at the Sibelius Academy. Libero Mureddu is the Sibelius Academy’s representative of the METRIC (Modernising European Higher Music Education through Improvisation) project, a cooperative forum between several European conservatoires that focuses on curriculum development and cooperation in the field of improvisation in higher music education.
Rolf-Erik Nystrøm, The Norwegian Academy of Music
Rolf-Erik Nystrøm. Saxophonist and composer Born 1975 in Norway.
One of Norway’s most award-winning and internationally active musicians. Nominated for the Nordic Council Music Prize in 2011. He has collaborated with JM Coetzee, Renzo Piano and William Kentridge. His unique technical ability gives him a control of timbre that obliterates most people’s notions of what is possible on a saxophone, to a degree that makes the saxophone an instrument almost subordinate to his personal expression. He has spent his time creating new techniques on the instrument to enhance the possibility of merging it into different styles.
4 times soloist with the Oslo Philharmonic, and a number of other leading orchestras and ensembles around the world. (Swedish Radio Philharmonic, Basel Symphony orchestra, Saint Petersburg symphony orchestra etc)
Composes music for orchestra, dance, film, theatre etc. Collaborates with internationally leading performers of folk music (Senegal, South-Africa, Tadjikistan, Angola, Egypt, Mauritania, Brazil, Ivory Coast, China, Norway, Sri Lanka) and tours all over the world with them. Far from being a superficial cross-over artist, he makes his mark by an unusual ability to orientate himself in new musical situations, and to be ’in the style’ and contribute with a personal, pioneering expression. He has played concerts in 50 countries on 4 continents, contributed on more than 120 albums, and premiered more than 150 works for saxophone written by some of the world’s leading contemporary composers like Luca Francesconi, Richard Barrett, Helmut Oehring, Rolf Wallin and Maja SK Ratkje.
Artistic leader for and Artist in Residence during the Ultima International Contemporary Music Festival in Oslo 2011.
One of the three members of the international claimed contemporary music trio Poing, and performs regularly with Nils Økland and Frode Haltli. Also important the last years have been his groundbreaking work on the connections between early Baroque music and folk music from within and outside Europe under the name of Oriental Winds of the Baroque.
Associate professor at The Norwegian Academy of Music where he studied w/among others John Edward Kelly. He gives master classes and lectures all over the world.
Alejandro Olarte, Sibelius Academy of Uniarts Helsinki
I am lecturer in Electroacoustic Music in the field of Creative Practices of Electronic Music. I work with sound and its artistic articulation through the lens of technology. I am constantly reflecting on the consequences and affordances of these media in our daily lives as individuals, artists, and citizens. I am committed to pedagogy because I believe in educational exchange as a powerful force for moving society forward. I am interested in artistic research, sound and musical performance, and modern lutherie.
Anto Pett, Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre
In 1988 A. Pett discovered that improvisation was to become his main means of artistic expression. Since 2002 he has been a regular professor of contemporary improvisation in Est. Academy of Music and Theatre. During his over 35 years of teaching A. Pett has developed an original improvisation teaching method that works successfully in the teaching process with all instruments and singers. A. Pett has presented his teaching method and made masterclasses in many Music Schools of Estonia and in several Music Academies, Universities and Conservatoires (now over 50) abroad.
Anne-Liis Poll, Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre
Anne-Liis Poll is an improviser, choral conductor and teacher. As one of the leading improvising singers in Estonia, she is also an eminent teacher of singing and improvisation. She has developed her own voice improvisation teaching method called “Voice Games” which she has presented in workshops in the academies and conservatories of Europe (Warsaw, Vienna, London, Glasgow, Cardiff, Antwerp, Helsinki, Udine etc) and USA (Princeton University).
Anne-Liis Poll is a professor of contemporary improvisation at Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre where she teaches free improvisation for voice.
Santiago Quintans, Conservatoire National de Musique et Danse de Paris
Santiago Quintans is a composer/guitarist active in the fields of contemporary music and Jazz. His music and research focus on the relationship between the electric guitar, improvisation, and new digital tools of sound transformation. His work evokes a new conception of musical materials based on the formal properties of sound masses and their motion in a given space. Coming from a Jazz/improvisational background, the relationship between body gestures and musical structure is at the core of his compositional approach
A native of Vigo, Spain (1975), Santiago holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Jazz Guitar and a Master’s Degree from the University of Miami (USA) as well as a Master’s Degree in Musicology (focusing on the digital treatment of the electric guitar) from Université Paris 8 (France). In 2004 he moves to Paris and becomes an active member of the new music/improvisation scene. He has written music for contemporary music ensembles, dance companies and as a performer he has worked with some of today’s leading figures in Jazz and contemporary music (Kenny Wheeler, Tony Malaby, Paul Rogers, Maria Schneider, Daniel Humair). He has performed emblematic pieces such as Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint, orchestral contemporary works such as Peter Eötvös ”Seven” and has appeared internationally in Festivals such as Europa Jazz, Montreux or Imaxinasons.
His research work on the electric guitar has been widely published (Journal of Interdisciplinary Music Studies (JIMS), Appareil, Espacio Sonoro), and he’s often invited to give lectures in Europe and America. He’s a Jazz faculty member at the Conservatoire Nationale de Musique et Danse de Paris, in Paris.
Yves Senden, Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp
Yves Senden, classical philologist, organist, Ph.d. in Arts (on musical semiotics).
Teaching Analysis, Improvisation, Philosophy of Music, Music History, Research.
Focus both on Baroque and Twentieth Century.
Milana Zaric, Royal Conservatoire, The Hague
With her harp, Milana Zarić connects creative performance with contemporary sensibility and new technologies. Principal harpist of the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, solo and chamber musician specializing in modern repertoire, artistic director of Ensemble Studio 6, curator and educator at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, she has also been an initiator of many international projects, establishing new bridges in collaborative creation.
She combines composition with free improvisation in original projects involving sound and transdisciplinary arts. Milana has commissioned and premiered over 30 solo harp and ensemble pieces, to which she also contributed with voice, zither, percussion, electric harp and electronics. She has performed across three continents and is a regular member of harp and electronics duo with Richard Barrett.