Composition Master Class - She Lives

SHE LIVES — the leading European musical association for promoting the dissemination of contemporary music— is honoured to announce the eighth edition of its Composition Master Class.

Since its establishment SHE LIVES has had the privilege of working with internationally acclaimed artists such as Peter Eötvös, Lasse Thoresen and Sidney Corbett, as well globally renowned institutions, including the Solisti della Scala di Milano, the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, the Accademia Chigiana di Siena, the Accademia Filarmonica Romana, the Fondazione Scelsi, the Reale Ambasciata di Norvegia, the Istituto Svizzero di Roma, the UMZE (the historic ensemble founded by Bartók), the Budapest Music Center, the LAC – Lugano Arte e Cultura, the Festival oggimusica, the Yamaha Concert Hall Wien, the Pro Helvetia, the Contemporary Art Festival Budapest, Warner Classics, Brilliant Classics, and Naxos.

Our students have achieved relevant musical careers, winning international competitions, and obtaining important positions in the most important musical institutions at the international level.

COMPOSITION MASTER CLASS 2026

GENERAL INFORMATION

Professors: Sidney Corbett, Alessio Elia

Composition master class on writing for string instruments, woodwinds and piano.

The active students will rehearse their pieces with the Ensemble in residence.
The ensemble is made of:

- flute descending to B (doubling: flute with glissando headjoint, piccolo and alto flute) - 1 player

- violin

- cello

- piano (prepared piano is not accepted)

Dates and place

Course period: 22-25 July 2026, BMC - Budapest Music Center.

Address: Mátyás utca 8- 1093 Budapest.
The masterclass could also be attended online, either as an active or passive participant.

COURSES

Sidney Corbett / Alessio Elia

- Post-tonal harmony

Harmony is often a neglected factor in contemporary compositional approaches.
This is due to a progressive lack of interest in considering the parameters on which music is structured.

Even compositional approaches centered on the handling of sound objects—such as musique concrète realized through acoustic instruments—can clearly investigate the harmonic dimension within their own field of interest.

This is to say that no sonic language can be considered valid without containing an internal harmonic dimension, however far this may be from a traditionally oriented conception.

Sidney Corbett

- Subjective analysis

An inquiry into the textuality of music that examines the subjective responses produced by specific materials, not as expressions of individual preference, but as resonances emerging from the deployment of those materials.

Alessio Elia

- Non-preexistence of sound and the indeducibility of sonic phenomena in Polysystemism.

In recent years, much compositional research has focused on sound as noise, on its residual and marginal aspects, and on the liminal zones between sound and silence or pitch and noise. While this has opened important perspectives, it often still treats sound as a pre-existing object—something given in advance.

Whether in spectral music, where sound serves as the basis for compositional construction, or in forms of musique concrète, where it appears as an objet trouvé, sound tends to remain something that can be analyzed, combined, or transformed, but not fundamentally questioned in its ontological status.

This course proposes a different approach, grounded in polysystemism and in the idea that sound does not pre-exist its manifestation. Instead, it introduces the concept of sonic non-deducibility that prevents prediction, allowing sound to emerge as a unique and unrepeatable event during its performative manifestation, and making it possible to conceive of it not as an object to be manipulated, but as an emergent phenomenon to be explored.  
Polysystemism, that is, the simultaneous use of different tuning systems, is grounded precisely in this conception of sound.

ACTIVE PARTICIPANTS (also online)

Active students are entitled to attend seminars and group lessons. They are also invited to discuss their work with professors during individual meetings. Additionally, they will rehearse their pieces with the Ensemble in residence, culminating in a performance, which will be also recorded.

Active participants can also attend the courses remotely, via the internet.
A link to a platform will be provided (no software needs to be installed, access is directly through the link).

In the application e-mail, please specify whether you intend to attend in person or remotely.

Even online participants will have their pieces performed by the ensemble in  residence, and they will receive a recording of the performance.
However, we are unable to provide a service for following the rehearsals remotely.
The rehearsals will nevertheless be supervised by the instructors, who will  take care of the piece written by the active student attending online.

PASSIVE PARTICIPANTS (also online)

Passive participants are entitled to attend classes, including seminars and group lessons, as well as participate in the discussions of active students regarding their work. However, they will not have private sessions to discuss their own work with professors. Additionally, passive participants cannot submit their works for consideration to be included in the rehearsals and performances with the Ensemble in residence.

Passive participants can also attend the courses remotely, via the internet.
A link to a platform will be provided (no software needs to be installed, access is directly through the link).

In the application e-mail, please specify whether you intend to attend in person or remotely.

LANGUAGES

The course will be held in English.

Individual lessons can be held in the following languages: Italian, English, German, Spanish, Hungarian (depending on the professor).

PERFORMANCE OF THE PIECES

Pieces by the active students will be rehearsed and performed by the Ensemble in residence.

Composers wishing to apply as active participants are invited to write a piece for the ensemble in residence (see the instrumentation list above).

The piece can be written for any combination of the instruments present in the ensemble, from the solo instrument up to the whole group and must not exceed 6 minutes in duration.

The scores and parts, preferably written with music notation software (Finale, Sibelius, Dorico, etc.) – manuscripts will also be accepted as long as they are clearly legible – must be sent as a pdf file by 30 June 2026, to the following e-mail address (please write as the e-mail subject COMPOSITION MASTER CLASS):

info@shelivesmusic.it

APPLICATION PROCESS FOR ACTIVE PARTICIPANT

Deadline for submission: 30 June 2026

To apply as an active participant, please send the following documents by e-mail (info@shelivesmusic.it), subject of the e-mail COMPOSITION MASTER CLASS:

 

• curriculum vitae
• scan of identity card or passport
• piece written for the ensemble in residence (any combination of the instruments present in the ensemble, from the solo instrument to the entire ensemble with a duration that does not exceed 6 minutes)
• receipt of payment of the selection process (100 €) - non-refundable.
   

Passive participant contribution (also online):

300 Euros

VERY IMPORTANT: Payment description: contribution master class composition 2026 (passive student)

Please note that any other payment description will not be accepted.

The contribution includes a SHE LIVES membership card. Participation in the courses is reserved for members.

The contributions must be addressed to the following Bank Account:

ASSOCIAZIONE SHE LIVES

IBAN: IT70D0306909606100000131702

BIC CODE: BCITITMM

BANK NAME: INTESA SAN PAOLO SPA, Milano.

SHE LIVES ADDRESS: Via Vulcano 7, 00015 – Monterotondo (Roma) - Italy

REGISTRATION CONTRIBUTIONS

Active students: 560 € = 100 € (selection process) + 460 € (remaining contribution)

Payment description: contribution master class composition 2026 (active student)

Passive students: 300 €

Payment description: contribution master class composition 2026 (passive student)

DEADLINES

Deadline for the selection process application (for those who wish to attend the course as active students)

30 June 2026

Deadline for the payment of the contribution (active and passive participants, also online, selected through the selection process)

8 July 2026

Deadline for the payment of the contribution (direct application as passive students - also online):

21 July 2026

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PROFESSORS

Sidney Corbett

© Philipp Hülsmann

„Music is for me a central source of spiritual nourishment", Sidney Corbett is quoted as saying in an interview with SWR (Southwest German Radio). Corbett is an artist who, outside the mainstream "new music" scene, maintains an independent and no less explicitly contemporary position.

 

His work draws on a wide range of musical and extra-musical sources, including literature and the visual arts, and also addresses philosophical and theological issues. Lyrical sensuality and complex rhythmic superimpositions of pulsations are characteristic of his music. He is a seeker, an explorer, for whom music is a form of expression and his way of deciphering the world. Corbett has ever remained open-minded, curious, an artist who always questions his aesthetics and their possible trajectories.

 

A substantial part of his musical output is devoted to music theater. He has to date written six operas. His chamber opera, "Keine Stille (außer der Windes)," ("No Silence (but that of the wind") based on texts by Fernando Pessoa, premiered in Bremen in 2006, and is scheduled for a new production at the Nationaltheater Mannheim in 2022. In 2018, Corbett's most recent opera, "San Paolo," based on an unrealized film script by Pier Paolo Pasolini, premiered in Osnabrück. "San Paolo" received the 2018 Palatinate Prize for Music.

 

His recent works include "aporia," inspired by texts by Jacques Derrida, for the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players and "Utopia and Intimacy," based on texts by Ernst Bloch, for violinist Nurit Stark and Schola Heidelberg .

 

Born in Chicago in 1960, Sidney Corbett studied music and philosophy at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and at Yale University, where he received his doctorate in 1989. From 1985 to 1988 he studied in Hamburg with György Ligeti. In 2006 he received a professorship in composition at the Musikhochschule Mannheim. Releases of his works have appeared on Sony Classical, Cybele, Mode Records, CRI, Edition Zeitklang, Kreuzberg Records, Blue Griffen, Edition Kopernikus, and Ambitus Records. Corbett's music is published and distributed worldwide by Edition C.F. Peters, Leipzig, London and New York. Since 2014 he lives with his family in Schwetzingen.

Official website: https://sidneycorbett.com/

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Alessio Elia

© Bálint Hrotkó

Described as an unicum in the compositional landscape of our times (Il Corriere Musicale) Alessio Elia is today considered among the most original composers of the new generation (la Repubblica, Universal Music Publishing, Muzsika, Radio Vaticana, Die Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung).

Elia received commissions most importantly from I Solisti del Teatro alla Scala di Milano (Octet); Radio Bartók (orchestral piece Trasparenze) for the ArTRIUM series of the National Hungarian Radio Orchestra; Alter Ego ensemble (Altered memories) for a project including commissions to Peter Eötvös, Toshio Hosokawa, Peter Ablinger, Lukas Ligeti, László Sáry and Howard Skempton; Impronta ensemble (Traces from Nowhere) for the Oggimusica Festival in Lugano; UMZE - the historical ensemble founded by Bartók (Ekpyrotic Suicide); Wiener Collage, members of the Wiener Philharmoniker (Outskirts of matter); Antal Dorati Conducting Competition (Distimement for large orchestra) as a complusory piece for the final round of the conducting contest; Stuttgart Kammerchor conducted by Frieder Bernius (Incantesimi di Merseburg); Festival Nuova Consonanza in Rome (Il canto segreto); Mozartfest Schwetzingen (Voids of Inequality) for Nikolaus Friedrich and the Chaos String Quartet; Gesellschaft für Neue Musik Mannheim (Die Nacht der Eingeweihten) for the pianist Florian Heinisch.

Guest composer and researcher at the Liszt Academy in Budapest, the State University of Debrecen, the Zoltán Kodály Institute in Kecskemét, the Sacher Foundation in Basel, and the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, he was also lecturer in composition in 2010 at the latter.

His music has been performed in significant concert halls and festivals worldwide (Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome; Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy in Budapest; Menuhin Festival in Oslo; Festival Erkel-Mahler in Budapest; Accademia Filarmonica Romana; BMC - Budapest Music Center; Bartók Hall of Palace of Arts – The National Auditorium in Budapest; Levinsalen and Lindemansalen in Oslo; Arnold Schoenberg Center in Vienna; LAC - Lugano Arte e Cultura Auditorium; National Hungarian Radio Studios; Auditorium del Parco by Renzo Piano in L'Aquila; Oggimusica Festival in Lugano; Contemporary Arts Festival Budapest; Yamaha Concert Hall Wien; Dresden Kulturpalast, etc.).

Elia’s works were broadcast by state radios and TV channels, such as: Radio Bartók (Hungary); Saarländischer Rundfunk (Germany); RAI Radio 3 (Italy); Hungarian Catholic Radio; Magyar Televízió and Duna TV (Hungarian State TV); Radio Vaticana.

He has released interviews about his music for: Cité de la musique in Paris, Magyar Televízió and Duna TV, Bartók Radio, Radio Vaticana, Dal+Szerző - Magazine of the Hungarian Bureau for the Protection of Authors’ Rights, Muzsika - the most important Hungarian journal for classical music, Musica +, Budapest Music Centre, and the Peter Eötvös Foundation.

His activity as a composer and researcher has taken him on a tour of conferences around Europe (Norway, Hungary, Germany, Denmark, Italy etc.), among them the most important were at: Cité de la musique in Paris; Internationales Musikinstitute Darmstadt; Accademia Filarmonica Romana; Chigiana Academy in Siena; Canal C2 - Université de Strasbourg; The Hungarian Academy of Arts;  Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst Mannheim; Norwegian Academy of Music; Kampnagel Internationale Kulturfabrik in Hamburg during the Symposium "Ligeti und die Mikrotonalität", presented by Louise Duchesneau, secretary of Ligeti, with the extraordinary contribution of Paul Griffiths, first biographer of Ligeti.

Ten portrait concerts of his music have been organized in Budapest, Oslo and Rome since 2006.

Articles and essays on Polysystemism, his method of combining different tuning systems, have been published by the German publisher von Bockel Verlag, l'Université de Strasbourg and the Hungarian Academy of Arts, as well as the subject of a master thesis degree at the Academy of Music of the Italian Switzerland in Lugano.

Elia is the recipient of several prizes, among them the Chigiana Merit Award 2005 for the piece Luminescences and the 1st prize for the piece Rejtett dimenziók (Hidden Dimensions) in the orchestral category of UMZF 2013 (Hungarian Forum for New Music) Competition, in the year dedicated to Ligeti, with Péter Eötvös presiding over the jury.  

Since 2024 he is visiting professor in composition at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Mannheim.

Born in Rome in 1979, Elia has lived in different cities in Europe (Rome, Budapest, Odense, Oslo, Debrecen and Berlin).
Right now he is based in Budapest and Rome.

Official website: http://www.alessioelia.com/

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BUDAPEST MUSIC CENTER

Photos - courtesy of BMC