T he Living Composers Project

Mr. Bhagwati studied composition with Edison Denisov and Bogusław Schaeffer and conducting with Kurt Prestel at the Salzburg Mozarteum from 1984–87 and composition with Wilhelm Killmayer at the Musikhochschule Munich from 1987–90, where he graduated with distinction. He also attended the Cursus Annuel de Composition et Informatique Musicale at IRCAM in 1995–96, where he encountered Brian Ferneyhough and Tristan Murail, on a scholarship.

Among his honors are the Europäischer Kompositionspreis from the Akademie der Künste in Berlin (1991, for Variations) and the Ernst-von-Siemens-Förderpreis (1992, 2003, both for festivals that he founded). He has served as a fellow at IRCAM (1997–98) and ZKM in Karlsruhe (1998–99) and has served as composer-in-residence at Royaumont (1997), the Abbaye de la Prée (1997), Darmstadt (2003), the Villa Concordia Bamberg (2005), the Biennale Heidelberg (2006), and the California Institute of the Arts (2007), as well as to the Orchester der Beethovenhalle Bonn (1999–2000). His music has been featured at many leading festivals, including the Biennale München (1998), Éclat in Stuttgart (1999), Millennium Sangat in Mumbai (2000), maerzmusik in Berlin (2002, 2005), Darmstadt (2003), the ISCM World New Music Festival (2006), the Biennale di Venezia (2006), and Wien Modern (2008), and his installation-performances have been performed in Berlin, Klagenfurt, Linz, Montréal, Munich, Paris, Stuttgart, and Ulm.

As a conductor, he has mainly led performances of his own work. As a performer, he has often participated in many aspects of his own installation-performances, and has also designed and redefined concert spaces for his site-specific works. He has directed several music and theatre productions, mainly of his own works, in Berlin, Montréal, Munich, and Paris. As a writer, he has written many articles for European and Indian publications, many of which appear in the collection Komponieren im 21. Jahrhundert (1998, Kunstuniversität Graz). He is also a regular contributor of music programs to German public-radio stations.

Mr. Bhagwati is also active in other positions. He served as artistic director of the concert series KammerMusikUtopien in Munich in 1989–90 and with Moritz Eggert, he co-founded the biannual new music festival A•DEvantgarde in Munich in 1991 and served as its artistic director from 1991–95. He also assisted Hans Werner Henze and Gerd Kühr with workshops at the Biennale München from 1992–94 and founded the festival KlAngRiffe – Festival for Risky Music in Karlsruhe in 2003. With Gauri Tripathi and the Ondine Ensemble, he gave composition and dance workshops for children in London in 1993 and 1997. He has served as the curator of contemporaryXchange since 2001, a project of Ensemble Modern and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, which promotes the creative exchange of Indian musicians and new music. In addition, he served as the curator of the festival Rasalîla-Spiel der Gefühle in Berlin in 2003, which featured the results of this exchange process, as well as newly-commissioned works by composers of the Indian diaspora (Clarence Albertson Barlow, Shirish Korde, Naresh Sohal, and Param Vir), and he directed a children's project with the Berliner Philharmoniker in 2005.

He taught as a visiting professor of electronic music at the Institut für Elektronische Musik of the Universität Graz in 1998 and as Professor für Komposition und Multimedia at the Musikhochschule Karlsruhe from 2000–03. He has served as Canada Research Chair for Inter-X Art at Concordia University in Montréal since 2006.

A resident of Europe since 1968, he now divides his time between Canada, Germany, India, and Switzerland.

CONTACT INFORMATION

E-mail address: sandeep.bhagwati@gmail.com

COMPLETE LIST OF WORKS

STAGE: Quênâh – Szenen einer Katastrophe (music theatre work, text by the composer, after interviews with Bosnian refugees, Elias Canetti, Franz Kafka, Michel Butor, Heiner Müller, Gabrielle Adler, Henry Miller), 7 mixed voices, 1995; Macht Masse Mensch (music theatre work, text by Gunna Wendt, the composer, after Elias Canetti), baritone, 3 actors, 5 mixed voices, small orchestra (16 players), 1995; chants translucent ephemeral (music theatre work/performance, text by the composer), any 1-36 voices, computer ad libitum, 1996; Three Women Trois Femmes Drei Frauen (music theatre work/installation, text by the composer), female voice, actress, female cello, computer, 1996–97; Ramanujan (5 act opera, libretto by the composer), 10 soloists, violin, small orchestra (20 players), live computer, 1997; Jungfrau von Orleans (incidental music, play by Friedrich von Schiller), violin, viola, cello, live electronics, 1998; The Bacchae (incidental music, play by Euripides; the actresses also sing, make sounds), 5 actresses, 1998; Prinzessin Süssüsan (3 act children's opera, libretto by Peter Truschner, the composer), any 7 children's voices, any 4 voices, voice-mime, 3 children's choruses, small orchestra (30 players), 2004–07; stroboscopic arias (abstract-movement scenes, text by the composer), voice, female dancer, double bass, 2000– (ongoing work; may be performed by one player)

ORCHESTRAL: Tag – Sinfonia sacra (text by Novalis), boy soprano, soprano, baritone, mixed chorus, large orchestra, 1993; Ritual Virility Machine, large orchestra, 1998; Entrances, large orchestra, 2000; l'essence de l'insensible, small orchestra (12 players) (around hall, without conductor), click track, 2000; Wörterbuch der Winde (texts by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Saint-John Perse, the composer), Chinese ensemble (male traditional opera voice, sheng [Chinese mouth organ], pipa, liuqin [plucked Chinese instrument], yangqin [plucked Chinese instrument], zheng [Chinese zither], percussion), Western ensemble (soprano, flute, clarinet, viola, cello, double bass, percussion) (with 2 conductors), 2002; Sangit Sambhav – Origin of Music, small orchestra (13 players), 2003 (collaboration with Ashok Ranade); inside. a native land (concerto), trombone, 8 orchestral groups (17 total players) (without conductor), live electronics, 2002–04; Vineland Stelae (concerto-installation), shakuhachi (bamboo flute), contrabass flute, jazz trumpet, trombone, sarod, marimba, ewe (African drums), tablā, 4 gamelan players, 8 orchestral groups, live electronics, 2005–07; Rasas, small orchestra (16 players), 2000– (ongoing work)

CHAMBER MUSIC: Sonata, cello, piano, 1990; Variations (string quartet no. 1), 1991; Exterritorial I, 'Flucht/Fremde' (players also shout text by Edmond Jabès), viola, cello, double bass, 1993; alam al-mithal (string quartet no. 2), 1995; why sing why cry, violin, cello, 2000; a whirl of perspectives, violin, 2000; PindarExzisen (texts by Pindar, Friedrich Hölderlin), untrained female voice, speaker, shaman, dulcimer, zither, viola, 2002; awkwardly skirting disaster, cello, 2001–03; MORA, obbligato conductor-shouter-Sufi dancer, bass clarinet, trombone, cello, 2004; Petits Traités, 2 electric guitars, 2004; Stele II for Wolfgang Stryi, bass clarinet, violin, cello, gong, 2005; Illusies van Harder en Zacht, sheng, zheng, viola, cello, 2004–06; Traces and Shadows, sheng, 2006; Stele III for James Tenney, string quartet, 2006; Transience, recorder, 13-string koto, 2008

CHORAL: Hölderlin Chöre (text by Friedrich Hölderlin), mixed chorus, 1986; Exterritorial III, 'Finisterre' (text by Fernando Pessoa), 12 mixed voices, organ, 1993; Atish-e-Zaban – Fires of the Tongue (text by Faiz Ahmed Faiz), 6 mixed voices, 2006

VOCAL: Exterritorial II, 'Still allein' (text by Ernst Herbeck), baritone, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, percussion, 1993; Raggerlieder (text by Bernhard Ragger), soprano, piano, 1994; Katarakt Meer Katarakt (text by Dylan Thomas), soprano, 2 percussion, string quartet, 1995; Tre Canti di Sigismondo d'India, mezzo-soprano, string quartet, 1995; Viel Glück (text by Hans Ulrich Treichel), high voice, piano, 1999; Grünbein Lieder (text by Durs Grünbein), mezzo-soprano, string quartet, 2000; songs on nothing (text by Dilip Chitre), mezzo-soprano, violin, 2002; Lieder des Lichts (text by Raoul Schrott), mezzo-soprano, cello, 2003; To those born far away from home (text by the composer), mezzo-soprano, violin, cello, 2003

PIANO: Agni or 45 Modes of Easy Listening, 2 pianos, 1993; Dornenstück, piano 4 hands, 1994; Stele I, prepared piano, 2004; Scardanelli Sonata, 2007

ELECTROACOUSTIC: no body no cry, CD, 1998; no wind – neither here nor there (4-track sound installation), 2000; 4'33" absolute zero remix, CD, 2001; Die Gesänge der Ghat Biwa, CD, 2002; Bombay Echo Chamber (4-track sound installation), 2003; two to two to two two, CD, 2003–04; Cliff! (text by Ulrike Draesner), CD, 2004; 'all over again' (text by Philip Larkin), CD, 2004; Lost voices, CD, 2008

MULTIMEDIA/PERFORMANCE: Cantus ad ventum (site-specific performance/open-air event, text by the composer), 5 early music voices, 3 mixed choruses, 4 hot-air balloons, 1995; Mind the Gaps (performance, text by the composer), female voice, speaker, 12 objects (in vitrines), light/room installation, live electronics, 1995; Schnee Schrift Sprache Schweben (performance, text by the composer), 2 folk voices, speaker, Alphorn, dulcimer, zither, film, 1995; Zukunftsmusik (performance, all players also roar, speak, whisper), soprano, English horn, trumpet, violin, double bass, 1999; making music (site-/date-specific light/audio/object installations, audience-participation/text performances, text by the composer), voice, dancer, small orchestra (14 players), 2000; neither here nor there (site-/performer-specific light/audio/film installations, text performances, text by the composer), Butoh dancer, kathak dancer, performer (with interactive body suit), carillon, percussion, 2000; urban.dis.urban (multimedia-concert installation), film (by Yvette Mattern), 2001 (includes compositions, remixes by 10 composers); >>forwardI20.02.2002Irewind<< (site-/date-specific performance/palindromic music), 2002 (a compilation of many works by various composers using palindromes); PerSonAlia, 12 actors, moving audience, sound/light installations, 2007 (collaboration with students of Concordia University)

(Last updated on May 10, 2008)