Photo: Miri Davidovitz
Elena Rykova
A composer, performance artist, and sound seeker, Elena Rykova, explores a wide variety of genres in music and visual art, ranging from interdisciplinary and performance art to chamber, ensemble, and electroacoustic music. She brings together instruments and found objects, extending one through another and creating performative musical situations, often with a strong visual aspect. Her scores are characterized by innovative use of nontraditional notation, having been exhibited in art museums internationally. She has written solo, chamber, and ensemble works, electroacoustic works, music theatre pieces, and musical performances for major new music groups around the world, as well as music for film and visual media.
She holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University where she also taught composition and electroacoustic music as a Teaching Fellow.
Elena is currently based in Lausanne, Switzerland. She serves on the programmation committee of Société de Musique Contemporaine (SMC) and as a board member of Suisse Music Edition (SME).
Starting in August 2024, Rykova will take on the role of Artistic Director for the Basel-based ensemble Lemniscate, further solidifying her commitment to shaping the future of new music.
Speaking objects* animated by a curious ear and an uncertain eye;
the joy of discovery - the discovery of a joy.
The unpredictability of the creative process finds itself on the paper:
Speaking drawings, symbols and musical signs.
Once the interpreter’s eye animated by an uncertain ear becomes curious,
the journey begins:
following the map of the Unknown,
discovering the drawing twice**,
led by the light – the light of Sound.
* by objects here any sources of sound are to be considered (instruments, pine cones, construction tools etc.)
** “discovering the drawing twice” is a reference to the series of lectures by William Kentrige