Dr. Michael Ellison

Dr. Michael Ellison
Reader and Composer, School of Arts, University of Bristol, UK

Keynote speech:  “Towards a Transcultural Music and Transcultural Musical Theatre”

Dr. Michael Ellison is the Principal Investigator on the five-year, Bristol-based European Research Council project Beyond East and West: Developing and Documenting an Evolving Transcultural Musical Practice (2015-2020) and is co-director of the Istanbul-based Hezarfen Ensemble. His music of Michael Ellison seamlessly integrates contemporary and traditional influences into a unique and personal idiom. His first opera, Mevlana, Say I am You (Rotterdam Operadagen and Istanbul Music Festivals, 2012) broke new ground in transcultural music, achieving an unprecedented level of integration of Turkish traditional instruments into new music—a direction his second opera, Deniz Küstü (Istanbul Music Festival, 2016, Jones/Tanbay/NOHlab) extends. Ellison has been commissioned by BBC Symphony Orchestra, Acht Brücken Festival, Radio France, Grenoble Festival, New York Youth Symphony, Siemens Foundation, Nova Chamber Music Series and many others.