Caspar de Gelmini

For some time now I have been dealing with a mixture of contemporary music and video art. This type of music has a long tradition in Germany and can be shown both in the context of a new music festival, but also at media art festivals or in galleries and museums.

On the one hand, this music requires knowledge of instrumental music and live electronics, on the other hand, it requires knowledge of photography and image processing. IRCAM software such as Max Msp, Open Music and Jitter are used here. The goal is to create an interface between music and art. In this context, many courses of study such as “Sound Studies” or “Music and Media Art” were created in Germany. In my work I cooperate with scientists from the Humboldt University Berlin and the Charité Berlin and research cells with regard to their graphical, typological structures, on the other hand I deal with various plant species in the botanical garden. For this I use typological processes that are based on Bernd and Hilla Becher and their Düsseldorf school.

Caspar de Gelmini studied after a preparatory training in composition in Berlin at the University for Music and performing Arts Rostock where he obtained his baccalaureate exam. He then studied until his Diploma Examination at the University for Music Franz Liszt in Weimar. He took postgraduate Studies at the University Mozarteum Salzburg as well as a Master degree from the State University of Music and Performing Arts in Stuttgart. During his studies he was Exchange Student at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, at the University for Music in Basel, at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris and at the IRCAM. His teachers majoring in composition were: Helmut Zapf, Peter Manfred Wolf, Michael Obst, Annette Schlünz, Pär Lindgren, Karin Rehnqvist, Georg Friedrich Haas, Michel Roth (music theory), Tristan Murail, Marco Stroppa, Frédéric Durieux and Hèctor Parra.

He was a finalist and winner of the Weimar Spring Festival Award (2005, 2007), winner of the BMW Composition Prize of Musica Viva in Munich (2008, 2010), winner of the Reading Panel IRCAM (Manifeste 2012; Cursus 2014) and a finalist in the OE1 Talentebörse composition prize in Austria (2013). Scholarships: Gerda and Luigi Prade Foundation, Oscar and Vera Ritter Foundation, Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty, Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes, German Academic Exchange Service. Since 2007, his works are published by Verlag Neue Musik Berlin. Since 2019 his audivisual Compositions are represented by Julia Lukha Gallery San Francisco. He worked with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Recherche, IRCAM Centre Pompidou, Work in Progress Berlin, Ensemble Phorminx Darmstadt, Ensemble Junge Musik Berlin and many others. Since WS 2019/20 he teaches as a lecturer audiovisual Composition at the University of the Arts Berlin.