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Luís Antunes Pena

Luís Antunes Pena, November 2010, Villa Concordia, Bamberg

Luís Antunes Pena (Lisbon, 1973) studied Piano and Solfeggio privately while studying Electronics engineering and before starting with the composition studies with the Russian teacher Evgueni Zoudilkine. At the same time he attends the composition seminars by Emmanuel Nunes at the Gulbenkian Foundation. Between 1996 and 1999, he studies at the Lisbon Superior School of Music with Christopher Bochmann and António Pinho Vargas. He attended numerous summer courses of composition in Paris, Darmstadt, Berlin and Brescia. Particularly important was the course with Gérard Grisey in IRCAM in 1998. During 1997 and 1999 he teaches Composition in several music schools in Lisbon. In 1997 he was one of the creators and artistic directors of the annual contemporary music festival ‘Jornadas Nova Música’ at the city of Aveiro, Portugal (1997-2001).
In 1999 he went to Germany to continue his studies of composition with Nicolaus A. Huber at the Folkwang University of Arts in Essen. At the same time started the studies of electronic music at the ICEM (Institut für Computermusik und Elektronische Medien) with Dirk Reith and later with Günter Steinke. In 2004 he concluded his studies of composition with distinction and wrote a dissertation on Helmut Lachenmann’s Mouvement (-vor der Erstarrung).
His compositions result from the intensive work on computer generated structures based on the development of his own computer tools. In the last production he reflects an interest in new forms of rhythm, noise and the social environment of Art and Music.
His music has been played all over Europe, USA, Asia and South America. He won composition prizes at the Salvatore Martirano Memorial Award Competition Competition (Illinois/USA), Eastman Computer Music Center 25th Anniversary International Electroacoustic Music Competition (Rochester/USA) at the 11th Summer Seminar from Vienna, at the contests Óscar da Silva and Lopes Graça (Portugal), and his music has been distinguished and selected by several festivals such as the ISCM Festivals in Miami, the World Music Days Stuttgart, the 32e Concours International de Musique et d’Art Sonore Electroacoustiques de Bourges, the International Computer Music Conference, the Festival Internazionale di Musica Elettroacustica del Conservatorio Santa Cecilia di Roma, or the Mantis Festival of the University of Manchester.
He was granted the scholarship of the Foundation for Science and Technology from the Portuguese Ministry for Science and Education, the “MozArt 250” scholarship from the Jeunesses Musicales Deutschland, the ZKM | Karlsruhe, and from the Experimentalstudio Freiburg. He worked at the studios of the ZKM and at the Visby Composers Centre (Sweden).
He has had commissions from different institutions such as the SWR, WDR, Casa da Música, Philharmonie Essen, DeutschlandRadio, Deutscher Musikrat, the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Jeneusses Musicales Deutschland, the ZKM | Karlsruhe, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (Lisbon), Arte no Tempo and the Christoph Delz Stiftung (Basel).
He worked at the Hochschule für Musik Karslruhe teaching Computer Music and Analysis as well as at the Musikhochschule Trossingen. In 2010, he was Composer in Residence at the Kunst-Station Sankt Peter in Cologne and at the Villa Concordia Bamberg.
His music is published in several CDs including the 2016 portrait CD Caffeine from the Edition Zeitgenössische Musik / Wergo / German Council of Music. In 2013 it was released his first portrait CD Terrains Vagues in Cooperation with the ZKM | Karlsruhe and the Villa Concordia Bamberg.
His music is heard regularly by renowned ensembles like the mosaik ensemble, asamisimasa, nadar, hand werk or remix ensemble.
In 2008, he joined the music publisher sumtone.

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