Ukrainianb. 1989 · Ukraine
Anna Arkushyna is a Ukrainian composer based in Graz, Austria. She studied composition in Kyiv with Alla Zahaykevych and Yevhen Stankovych and continued in Graz with Beat Furrer and Franck Bedrossian, at the IEM Graz, and in IRCAM's Cursus program in composition and computer music (2022–23). Her honours include the Musikförderungspreis der Stadt Graz (2021), an Austrian START scholarship (2022) and a State Composition Stipendium (2024), and her music has been performed at festivals including ManiFeste, Warsaw Autumn and Impuls by ensembles such as Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Modern and Ensemble Spectrum.
a set of variations for violin and fixed media
Performed by Lavinia Pavlish (Violin)
Modelle for Violin and Tape is a set of variations, in which the violin part is derived from the electronics, and vice versa. So why not Live? Quite simply, because while working on this piece, in 2016, the composer was not well-versed in that technique. Even now, however, she prefers to have everything fixed, and uses “fixed media” in the scores as well as in soundtracks.
Performed by Johnna Wu (Violin), Marina Kifferstein (Violin), Jeremy Kienbaum (Viola), Kirsten Jermé (Cello), Nuiko Wadden (Harp)
The title refers to a quote from a brave woman from the Kherson region who told a russian soldier at the beginning of the full-scale invasion: “Put the sunflower’s seeds in your pockets, so they grow like sunflowers after you die and lie down here.” “…So They Grow Like Sunflowers,” for harp and string quartet, was commissioned by Radio France in 2022 with the special condition that it contain five movements, each broadcast on a separate day. The idea was a progression that makes the pure, bright sound of the strings become something darker, uncatchable, hazed and distorted through preparation of the instruments; at the moments when the strings are fully prepared the musicians play blind, giving more meaning to the gesture than to the pitch — like a mirror that shows a distorted, barely recognisable reflection of us.
