Voix Nouvelles Royaumont - Composing and playing with roots

Presentation

Campus Voix Nouvelles offers a unique opportunity for composers and performers to progress with recognized professionals.

For composers, it recreates the entire process of creating a new work, under professional conditions: writing, rehearsals, public performance, under the supervision of internationally renowned composers of diverse aesthetics.

It brings in the best ensembles and soloists to rehearse and perform the works, which are then performed in public and recorded. What’s more, it gives us the opportunity to collaborate with exceptional musicians, who cultivate a veritable force of proposal in the development of the work in progress.

At the end of the training program, the Royaumont Foundation continues to support the composers taking part in the Campus by awarding commissions for new works to be performed at the Saison Royaumont or in the programming of partners, ensembles or professional soloists.

Performers benefit from the advice of musicians experienced in contemporary repertoire and interaction with composers, in the form of individual lessons, rehearsals of chamber music repertoire or solo works. The performers are formed into an ensemble, the “Ensemble Voix Nouvelles”, which will work on a specific repertoire, drawing on the work of the Campus tutors, but will also be called upon to contribute to the creation of the composer participants, alongside the ensembles and professional performers present.

The 2026 edition of Campus Voix Nouvelles

In 2026, Campus Voix Nouvelles places the question of identity at the heart of the creative process. Under the theme “Composing and playing with one’s roots”, this new edition invites composers and performers to explore what, in their origins, history or culture, irrigates their sonic imagination. How does individual or collective memory shape contemporary musical writing? What gestures, languages, sonorities, techniques or ways of playing an instrument are born of a conscious dialogue with one’s roots?

Campus Voix Nouvelles becomes a place of transmission, creation and exchange. Under the guidance of composer Zad Moultaka (Lebanon) and composer Farnaz Modarresifar (Iran) – the latter also playing the santour, a traditional Persian instrument – participants will be accompanied in the composition of new works based on this theme.

This reflection will unfold with the help of exceptional forces. The prestigious International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE, New York), renowned for its commitment to contemporary creation and intercultural dialogue, will be the resident ensemble. Alongside them, American soprano Marisol Montalvo, American conductor of Zimbabwean origin Vimbayi Kaziboni, koto player Naoko Kikuchi (Japan) and santur player Farnaz Modarresifar (Iran) will open up new avenues of collaboration, transmission and inspiration.

Campus Voix Nouvelles offers a framework for intensive work: individual courses, group workshops, critical exchanges, rehearsals and live performance. Through voice, instrument, improvisation, sound or silence, each composer and performer is invited to develop a unique voice, nourished by what connects him or her to the world.

Campus Voix Nouvelles is part of the 2026 Summer Campus, bringing together other training courses taking place at the same time. Common sessions will be organized for all participants, such as physical practice sessions (e.g. munz floor), conferences, debates or interventions in specific areas of personal or career development.

Teachers

Composition

Zad Moultaka compositeur, plasticien (Liban, 1967)

Farnaz Modarresifar compositrice, santouriste, improvisatrice (Iran, 1989)
 

Interpretation

International Contemporary Ensemble
(flûte, saxophone, cor, violon, violoncelle, guitare électrique, percussion)

Marisol Montalvo chant

Farnaz Modarresifar santour

Naoko Kikuchi koto

Ilan Volkov direction