Sebastian Rivas

Sebastian Rivas
Period: 2013-2014
Profession: Composer Sebastian Rivas, of Franco-Argentine origin, was born in 1975. He dedicated himself completely to jazz, rock and improvisation before plunging into composition. In 1997 he emigrated to France, his native land, to study with Sergio Ortega and Ivan Fedele. He has taken part in numerous training courses and master classes at IRCAM, the Acanthes Center with the Ictus group, and the Royaumont Foundation, notably with Klaus Huber, Brian Ferneyhough, Jonathan Harvey, Michael Jarrell and François Paris. In 2004 he took part in the Cursus for composition and musical information technology at the IRCAM when Philippe Leroux was the associate composer. His works are played by groups and soloists such as the Intercontemporain Ensemble, the Percussions de Strasbourg, the 2e2m Ensemble, Christophe Desjardins, Pierre Strauch, Court-Circuit or Multilatérale. He obtained an award from the International Society for Contemporary Music in 2005, was
Tremplin for the Intercomporain Ensemble in 2008 and Prix Italia in 2012 for his radio opera
La Nuit Hallucinée . During his sojourn at Villa Medici, Sebastian Rivas will work at the development of a project on invisible cities inscribed in current events and memories of the inhabitants of Rome, based on a study of the Eternal City’s varied strata: architectural and urbanistic, sociological and historical. Rome endures the immobility and silence of its architectural heritage, as well as its fast raucous teeming traffic; the history of its civilization is eroded by the passing of time and the immediacy of fleeting – ephemeral publicity icons. So many contradictions that would submerge us in a flux of non-sense, without the stories of the inhabitants, their memories and their present. This cohabitation of beings incarnating Rome, create a grid of subjectivities that are immensely complex.