Meet the artists of Composer’s Kitchen 2023!

It is with great pride and excitement that we announce today the participants of the Composer's Kitchen 2023 edition! Gijs van der Heijden (Netherlands), David Ko (Netherlands), Maria-Eduarda Mendes Martins (Canada) and Louis-Michel Tougas (Canada) will join the Quatuor Bozzini and mentors Jimmie LeBlanc and Mayke Nas for a professional creation residency from June to September 2023. Presented in partnership with Gaudeamus, the Composer's Kitchen will take place in two parts: in Montreal (Canada) in June 2023, then in Utrecht (Netherlands) in September 2023 during the Gaudeamus Festival where the pieces will be premiered. The works will then be performed in Montreal. We can't wait to dive into this space of possibility, exchange and experimentation, and we look forward to the first sketches!

Maria-Eduarda Mendes Martins

Maria-Eduarda Mendes Martins is a composer, conductor, and arts administrator living in Toronto, Canada.

Featuring a wide variety of ensembles and sonic colours, her music questions the nature of time, the intricate relationships between past, present, and future, as well as other philosophical matters which are constantly present in history. Ultimately, Maria-Eduarda hopes to foreground human connections between different times and cultures.

Born and raised between two Brazilian capitals (Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre), Maria-Eduarda did not have access to musical education until her adolescence, when she discovered an ability to create medieval-sounding melodies. Since then, she completed a bachelor’s degree in music composition at UFRGS with Celso Loureiro Chaves, a master’s degree in music composition at University of Victoria with Dániel Biró and Christopher Butterfield, and she is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in music composition (DMA) at University of Toronto, having Gary Kulesha as her supervisor. Her involvement with the local music community led Maria-Eduarda to stay in Canada, receiving honours such as the 2021 Friends of Canadian Music Award, and becoming a Canadian citizen in 2023.

Maria-Eduarda’s music has been recorded by Ablaze Records, Redshift Music, Musicworks (edition #129) and by Urban Arts Berlin collective. Her works have been performed by the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, Brno Philharmonic Orchestra, Allegra Chamber Orchestra, Orkest de Ereprijs, Quatuor Bozzini, Luciane Cardassi, Mark McGregor (among others), in cities across North America, South America, and Europe.

Louis-Michel Tougas

Louis-Michel Tougas is a Montreal-based composer and drummer. He obtained an undergraduate degree in composition at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, and then a scholarship from the Baden-Württemberg Foundation allowed him to pursue a master's degree in composition and computer music at the Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart, Germany. He then studied sound recording at McGill University and obtained a degree in music analysis at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal. He is currently pursuing doctoral studies in composition at McGill University, where his research focuses on the relationship between notation, cognition, and the perception of rhythm. He is also a research assistant and teaching assistant in computer-assisted composition. His music has been presented at several festivals in Quebec, British Columbia, France and Germany, by ensembles such as Ascolta, Ensemble CORE, Ensemble Volte and the Stuttgart Kammerorchester.

David Ko

Kavid Do was born as David Jong-Chul Ko in 1997 in Seoul, South Korea. He spent most of his youth in the suburbs of Canada, where he first learned to compose, play the piano, and was dubbed by friends as Kavid Do. In 2014-15 he studied composition privately with Rodney Sharman, and in 2015 he moved to Amsterdam to study at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, where he studied composition with Joël Bons and Richard Ayres (BMus). He is currently completing his master’s in composition, studying with Richard Ayres and Jorrit Tamminga.
What inspires him musically are the lyric and ethereal qualities in melody, tuning, and timbre. He draws heavily from intonation theory and music production practices such as recording and sound design. His music has been performed in halls such as Korzo, Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ and the Orpheum Annex in Vancouver. He has collaborated with visual artists Monica Mays and Min Oh and theatre director Rebekka Nilsson, both as a composer and performer.
He has received scholarships from the Langley Community Music School, British Columbia Arts Council, and the Amsterdam School of the Arts. In 2018, he was awarded the SOCAN young composer’s award for his piece, "Let’s Talk About Heritage".

Gijs van der Heijden

Gijs van der Heijden (1982) is a composer based in Utrecht, currently completing his Master's in Composition at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague. His style is often strongly melodic, rhythmic and dynamic, but can also delve into a timeless, inexorable, meditative violence. His approach involves a commitment to developing a unique and personal sound through traditional methods, avoiding electronics or amplification whenever possible, and frequently employing multiple, different tunings. Gijs is particularly interested in the interaction between instruments and their distinct personalities, and his work often reflects a keen sense of intuitive musical timing. He draws inspiration from a wide range of sources, including experimental rock and film and game soundtracks, in addition to the contemporary-classical canon.

Gijs has received acclaim for his work, including a nomination for the Gaudeamus Award in 2013 for Our Primary Differences, selection for the 2010 Young Masters XXI Composition Contest in The Hague for Tees & Treeth, and first prize for ABC’s Trilobite Triacle at the 2012 Young Composers Meeting in Apeldoorn, Netherlands. He has collaborated with several renowned ensembles and orchestras, such as the Residentie Orchestra The Hague, North Netherlands Symphony Orchestra, New European Ensemble, Ensemble Klang, Moscow Contemporary Ensemble, Storioni Trio, and Silbersee.

Jimmie LeBlanc

In his instrumental and mixed compositions, Jimmie LeBlanc (Québec, 1977) explores how music can be thought in terms of capture of forces and logic of sensation, particularly through such concepts as performative figure and texture. He considers the space of the musical work as a body that takes shape in all the possibilities of energy circulation it contains, thus working on the paradox of a desubjectivation of expression embodied in a singular and intense focus on the performer’s gesture. More recently, the interaction between sense and sensation, through the more explicit integration of extra-musical references to his music, characterizes his research. A graduate of the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal in composition and musical analysis, and holding a doctorate in composition from the Schulich School of Music at McGill University, his music has carved out a place for itself on local and international scenes with, among others, Ensemble Contrechamps, Esprit Orchestra, Quatuor Bozzini, Nouvel ensemble moderne, Ensemble Paramirabo, Continuum Ensemble, Camerata Aberta, the Quasar saxophone quartet, and many soloists. LeBlanc won a 3rd prize at the Lutosławski Award (2008), as well as the Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music (Canada Council for the Arts, 2009). He is the author of Luigi Nono et les chemins de l’écoute (L’Harmattan 2010), "Xenakis’ Aesthetics: The Paradoxes of a Formalist Intuition" (Xenakis Matters, Pendragon Press 2012), and two contributions to La création musicale au Québec (ed. Jonathan Goldman, PUM, 2014). He is in charge of the Cahier d’analyse section on the editorial board of the magazine Circuit – musiques contemporaines, and teaches composition at the Faculty of Music of Université de Montréal.

Mayke Nas

Mayke Nas enjoys creating music for musicians breathing simultaneously, for moving chairs, wired blackboards and open bridges. She considers herself lucky to work with Nieuw Amsterdams Peil, Ragazze Quartet, Nieuw Ensemble, Asko|Schönberg, Slagwerk Den Haag, het Koninklijk Concertgebouw Orkest, de Neue Vocalsolisten, Ensemble Klang, Calefax, Eklekto and other musical wizards.

Mayke Nas studied piano and composition. She received commissions from amongst others Ensemble Modern (DE), Ragazze Kwartet, Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, Eighth Blackbird (USA), Liza Ferschtman, Slagwerk Den Haag, Nederlands Studenten Orkest, Koninklijk Concertgebouw Orkest, BlIndman (BE), Nieuw Ensemble, Hexnut, Calefax, Neue Vocal Solisten Stuttgart (DE), Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest, Ensemble Continuum (CA), ASKO en Schönberg Ensemble.

For her piece (w)here, written for the Asko Ensemble and co-commissioned by Festival November Music & Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst, she was awarded the Matthijs Vermeulen Price of Encouragement 2003. For La Chocolatière Brûlée - written for the Nieuw Ensemble - she received the Anjer Muziekprijs 2005. Down the Rabbit-Hole, written for the Royal Concertgebouworchestra was awarded the Kees van Baarenprijs 2015.

In 2005 she adapted I Delayed People's Flights By Walking Slowly In Narrow Hallways for four players, four chairs and four amplified chalkboards with live-electronics from Peter Handke's play 'Self-Accusation' for Percussion Group The Hague in collaboration with Wouter Snoei. In 2006, she revived the concept of audience-participation in the fluxus-inspired performance-piece Anyone can do it for six completely unprepaired players, not necessarily gifted with any musical talent. Between 2008 en 2011 she extensively explored the intestines of the grand piano in Douze Mains. In 2014 she turned pianist Ralph van Raat into an accomplished puppeteer in Behind the Scenes IV: El Angel Exterminador. And as provisional pinnacle she hid a whole orchestra (The Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra / Ed Spanjaard) on stage in Unraveled during the Cello Biënnale 2016.

For the 2011-2012 season Mayke Nas was awarded an artist-in-residence fellowship in Berlin by the DAAD.

From 2016 to 2018 Mayke Nas was Composer Laureate of the Netherlands.

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