Oscar Strasnoy


Oscar Strasnoy is a French-Argentine composer, conductor and pianist. Although primarily known for his stage works, the first of which Midea premiered in Spoleto in 2000, his principal compositions also include two secular cantatas and several song cycles.

Career

Oscar Strasnoy was born in Buenos Aires and studied piano, conducting and composition there at the Conservatorio Nacional Superior de Música, at the Conservatoire de Paris, where he won in 1996 a Premier Prix à l’Unanimité and the Hochschule für Musik, Frankfurt. He was the Music Director of the Orchestre du Crous de Paris. He was one of the founding recipients of the Grüneisen Foundation conducting scholarship, and of the French Government Scholarship. In 1999 he was invited by Peter Eötvös to Herrenhaus-Edenkoben in Germany.
Luciano Berio awarded him the 2000 Orpheus Prize for his chamber opera Midea produced at the Teatro Caio Melisso in Spoleto in 2000 and at the Rome Opera in 2001. He was also artist in residence at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, in 2003 at the Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto, and in 2006 at the Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Umbria, Italy. In 2007 he received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship for Music Composition.
Radio France, in association with the parisian Théâtre du Châtelet, featured Strasnoy as the main composer of the , a retrospective of most of his works in 14 concerts in January 2012.

Compositions

Oscar Strasnoy has composed twelve stage works, including operas performed at Spoleto, Rome, Paris, Berlin State Opera; 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 . 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.
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 primarily published by Chant du Monde and Billaudot. His opera Midea is published by Ricordi.

Operas and music theatre

2020: Kuleshov, Piano Concerto. Alexandre Tharaud, Les Violons du Roy conducted by Mathieu Lussier .
2018: Luther, Oratorio. Staatskapelle Halle conducted by Michael Wendeberg .
2018: Two Schubert Menuets, nº 3 and nº 5, arrangement for octet, Isabelle Faust & Friends. .
2017: Berceuse, Mara Dobresco, piano. CD Paraty 107159.
2016: Hanokh, by Erwan Keravec, bagpipe, Donatienne Michel-Dansac, soprano and Vincent Bouchot, baritone, CD Vox.
2014: An Island Far, Ensemble 2e2m, dir. Pierre Roullier, .
2013: Orchestral works, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Dima Slobodeniouk and Susanna Mälkki
2013: Geschichte, CD du Festival d'Automne de Varsovie. Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart.
2010: Un retour, Ensemble Musicatreize, dir. Roland Hayrabedian
2007: Hochzeitsvorbereitungen , Ensemble 2e2m, dir. Pierre Roullier
2000: Two tangos Paris-Buenos Aires, CD Bis records
1998: Bloc-notes de Midea , CD Hochschule für Musik Köln/Conservatoire de Paris, cond. Peter Eötvös

Awards