Minas Borboudakis

Minas Borboudakis (1974) was born and raised in Heraklion, Crete. He has lived in Germany from 1992 after initially studying piano and composition in Munich and Hamburg, and has been working as a freelance composer and pianist in Munich ever since. He has received several awards for his work, including the Rodion Shchedrin Chamber Music Prize, the Christoph and Stephan Kaske Foundation Prize, the Bayerischer Kunstförderpreis and the Music Promotion Prize of the City of Munich.

Music is life and life is music

Minas Borboudakis (1974) was born and raised in Heraklion, Crete. He has lived in Germany from 1992 after initially studying piano and composition in Munich and Hamburg, and has been working as a freelance composer and pianist in Munich ever since. He has received several awards for his work, including the Rodion Shchedrin Chamber Music Prize, the Christoph and Stephan Kaske Foundation Prize, the Bayerischer Kunstförderpreis and the Music Promotion Prize of the City of Munich.

In his compositions Borboudakis deals with philosophical and cosmological questions - for him composing is a way to understand and reproduce life through music. His musical idiom moves between emotion and intellect, poetics and realism. The musical language in Borboudakis' works is characterized by impulsiveness, microtonality, rich timbres and expressive gestures.

At the centre of his work are the cycles: ROAI I-V (for various chamber music formations), an examination of the theme of flowing according to the Heraklitic movement "Panta Rhei". In Photonic constructions I-III (for orchestra and ensemble formations) he depicts the dual nature of light through oscillating sounds. In addition to numerous compositions for solo works and large orchestra compositions, the third cycle, Cycloids I-III (for keyboard instruments), is a preoccupation with the question of circling and constantly mutating repetition.

A further central role in his work is played by music theatre and multimedia pieces such as liebe.nur liebe (2007, Bavarian State Opera), ?d???s[?]µ?? ?µe[O]?t?? (2012, Munich Biennale), Angels (2014, Conservatorium Maastricht) and Enheduanna (2015, The Glasgow School of Arts). In 2018, his opera Z celebrated great successes under his direction at the Greek National Opera in Athens.

Borboudakis’ music is performed in leading European concert halls such as the Berliner Philharmonie, the Elbphilharmonie, the Wigmore Hall and Southbank Centre in London, and also at major festivals such as the Bregenz Festival, the Munich Biennale and the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music.

His compositions have been performed by renowned European orchestras and ensembles, such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and Ensemble Modern and the Kremerata Balticam, and with artists such as Kent Nagano, Juraj Valcuha, Constantinos Carydis, Enrique Mazzola, Johannes Moser, Alexej Gerassimez, Andreas Skouras and Alice Sara Ott.

In addition to his work as a composer, Minas Borboudakis regularly performs as a pianist and conductor with various ensembles and chamber music partners, including the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Chamber Orchestra and the Ergon Ensemble.

As a lecturer and music mediator he develops projects with various institutions for young creative people, for example for the education programme of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the composition competition Jugend komponiert Bayern as well as master classes for composition and interpretation of New Music at various music colleges.

The highlight of the 2017/2018 season was the premiere of Z, based on the novel of the same name by Vassilis Vassilikos. As the first commissioned work of the new Greek National Opera, it was named one of the most important opera productions in Greece in 2018. The German version and second production will be premiered at the Bavarian State Opera in July 2019 as part of the Opera Festival.

Minas Borboudakis' works are published by Edition Peters

https://www.borboudakis.com/