William Blank

Biography

The composer and conductor William Blank was born in Montreux in 1957. He was responsible for contemporary music at the Music Academy HEMU in western Switzerland, where he directs the Ensemble Contemporain and teaches composition and analysis from 2001 to 2022. Blank’s works are performed throughout Europe and in the USA and Japan, in prestigious concert halls such as the Victoria Hall in Geneva, the KKL in Lucerne, the Zurich Tonhalle, the Philharmonie in Paris, the Zaal Koningin Elisabeth in Antwerp, the Wigmore Hall in London, the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building in Oxford, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Vienna Musikverein, the Salzburg Festpielhaus, the Mariinsky New Concert Hall and the Philiharmonie of St Petersburg, the Philharmonie in Shanghai and the Suntory Hall in Tokyo. His music has been performed by conductors such as Kent Nagano, Armin Jordan, Antony Wit, Fabio Luisi, Pinchas Steinberg, Kasuyoshi Akiyama, Zsolt Nagy, Jean Deroyer, Dennis Russell Davies, Pascal Rophé or Heinz Holliger.

He has collaborated in particular with the Kammerorchester Basel, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Contrechamps, Collegium Novum Zürich, Ensemble Paul Klee as well as with numerous internationally renowned artists such as the Quatuor Sine Nomine, Amar Quartet, pianist David Lively, cellist Jan Vogler, trumpeter Alison Balsom, violist Geneviève Strosser, the singers Rosemary Hardy and Natalia Zagorinskaja, the MDR Orchestra Leipzig, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande or the Swiss Chamber Soloists.

In 2001, Blank was awarded the Prize of the Cantonal Bank of Canton Vaud for his life’s work hitherto. Then, as part of his residency with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, he wrote Exodes, dedicated to Kofi Annan, which was given its first performance in October 2003 on United Nations Day in New York. He also gave a masterclass about the work at the Juilliard School of Music. Blank’s works have been released on numerous CDs as recently his complete orchestral works and his three string quartets recorded by AEON and GENUINE that have been accorded great praise by the national and international press. In 2005 he was awarded the Prize of the Leenaards Foundation.
Since 2007 he is the musical and artistic director of the Lemanic Modern Ensemble.

Tags: classical music