Einar Torfi Einarsson
Einar Torfi Einarsson was born in Iceland 1980. He studied initially classical guitar and composition, with Guðmundur Hafsteinsson, at Reykjavik College of Music. In 2005 he moved to Amsterdam to continue his composition studies with Fabio Nieder at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, where he later studied also with Richard Ayres and Willem Jeths. Einar spend also time at the KunstUniversität in Graz studying with Beat Furrer. In 2008, Einar was selected to participate in the Ligeti Academy in Amsterdam. He has attended and recieved lectures, masterclasses and private lessons from a.o. Salvatore Sciarrino, Brian Ferneyhough, Emmanuel Nunes and Jonathan Harvey. He is currently a PhD student at the CeReNeM, University of Huddersfield, on the Jonathan Harvey Scholarship, supervised by Aaron Cassidy.
Einar Torfi has worked with several ensembles such as the Elision Ensemble, Nieuw Ensemble, Asko Ensemble, Insomnio Ensemble, Ensemble Adapter, Holland Symfonia and Caput Ensemble. His music was featured on the “International Rostrum of Composers” and has been performed and broadcasted in Scandinavia, Netherlands, France and Germany.
Einar has received grants from Musica Nova foundation Iceland, Composers Fund 365 and Reykjavik City for collaboration projects with various performers. During the Netherlands Music Days festival 2008 his piece “Nine Tensions” was awarded the “Henriëtte Bosmansprijs” 2008. He was nominated for the “Buma Toonzetters Prize” 2009, winner in the category: "best ensemble piece". His orchestra piece “Apertures” was selected for the Young Composers Project 2009 of Holland Symfonia and premiered on the Gaudeamus Music Week 2009.
Current and future activities involve a piece for ELISION Ensemble for the “Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival”, a piece for “Klangforum Wien”, a commission awarded by the “impuls Composition Competition 2009”, and most recently a commission for “Ensemble Intercontemporain”, which was awarded through the Tremplin Commission Programme organised by IRCAM and Ensemble Intercontemporain.
Einar Torfi has worked with several ensembles such as the Elision Ensemble, Nieuw Ensemble, Asko Ensemble, Insomnio Ensemble, Ensemble Adapter, Holland Symfonia and Caput Ensemble. His music was featured on the “International Rostrum of Composers” and has been performed and broadcasted in Scandinavia, Netherlands, France and Germany.
Einar has received grants from Musica Nova foundation Iceland, Composers Fund 365 and Reykjavik City for collaboration projects with various performers. During the Netherlands Music Days festival 2008 his piece “Nine Tensions” was awarded the “Henriëtte Bosmansprijs” 2008. He was nominated for the “Buma Toonzetters Prize” 2009, winner in the category: "best ensemble piece". His orchestra piece “Apertures” was selected for the Young Composers Project 2009 of Holland Symfonia and premiered on the Gaudeamus Music Week 2009.
Current and future activities involve a piece for ELISION Ensemble for the “Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival”, a piece for “Klangforum Wien”, a commission awarded by the “impuls Composition Competition 2009”, and most recently a commission for “Ensemble Intercontemporain”, which was awarded through the Tremplin Commission Programme organised by IRCAM and Ensemble Intercontemporain.
Quanta
In this piece, for 11 musicians, difference, sound-symmetry, tactility, repetition and the nexus of unity and multiplicity is explored. Objects are unities and yet they always comprise multiple parts, as well as constitute to another multiplicity. There are two properties of objects: extensive and intensive. On the microscale there is repetition, a simultaneous repetition or a static/vertical repetition (intensity), and on the timescale there is difference being repeated (extensity). Furthermore there is a tactile approach to these objects by the means of imaginative touch-sound, the hand becoming the ear, i.e. how their surfaces are encountered, or touched, through the ear - surfaces because that is the realm of the hand, thus not their inner-dimensions (which remain unknown as such). Depth is therefore transferred to the temporal dimension, meaning that distance becomes juxtaposition in time, a through-movement. Hierarchy of surfaces is instable from this viewpoint and even eliminated. This instability of foreground without background is the haptic encounter. Perspectives are taken but without distance, meaning that another perspective on an object gives us a different arrangement in time, a different through-movement. There is also an inversion of the perspective point; the point which is changeable becomes stationary and what is being perceived is in motion and moved through that point, in quantifiable portions. In this way the instruments become receivers of information/energy.
The title refers to the plural form of the smallest unit of any physical entity (quantum) involved in an interaction. Quantum is the beginning of quantization, separation, distinction and therefore difference. At this scale everything is repeated in order to be solid, and yet, if you increase the resolution of the senses everything becomes insubstantial.
(Einar Torfi Einarsson)
In this piece, for 11 musicians, difference, sound-symmetry, tactility, repetition and the nexus of unity and multiplicity is explored. Objects are unities and yet they always comprise multiple parts, as well as constitute to another multiplicity. There are two properties of objects: extensive and intensive. On the microscale there is repetition, a simultaneous repetition or a static/vertical repetition (intensity), and on the timescale there is difference being repeated (extensity). Furthermore there is a tactile approach to these objects by the means of imaginative touch-sound, the hand becoming the ear, i.e. how their surfaces are encountered, or touched, through the ear - surfaces because that is the realm of the hand, thus not their inner-dimensions (which remain unknown as such). Depth is therefore transferred to the temporal dimension, meaning that distance becomes juxtaposition in time, a through-movement. Hierarchy of surfaces is instable from this viewpoint and even eliminated. This instability of foreground without background is the haptic encounter. Perspectives are taken but without distance, meaning that another perspective on an object gives us a different arrangement in time, a different through-movement. There is also an inversion of the perspective point; the point which is changeable becomes stationary and what is being perceived is in motion and moved through that point, in quantifiable portions. In this way the instruments become receivers of information/energy.
The title refers to the plural form of the smallest unit of any physical entity (quantum) involved in an interaction. Quantum is the beginning of quantization, separation, distinction and therefore difference. At this scale everything is repeated in order to be solid, and yet, if you increase the resolution of the senses everything becomes insubstantial.
(Einar Torfi Einarsson)