updated 19 January 2023
© Stefan Prins

Stefan Prins

Belgian composer born 20 May 1979 in Courtrai, Belgium.

Stefan Prins studied composition and piano at the Antwerp Royal Conservatory, graduating with a Master’s degree in composition in 2009, alongside studies of music technology, the philosophy of technology, and sonology at Brussels Koninklijk Conservatorium, Antwerp University, and the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. In 2017, he received a Doctorate in composition from Harvard University, where he studied with Chaya Czernowin. He also participated in several masterclasses, allowing him further study with Georges Aperghis, Richard Barrett, Chaya Czernowin, Karlheinz Essl, Beat Furrer, Enno Poppe, Steven Tagasuki, and Vladimir Tarnopolski.

Prins is co-artistic director, along with Pieter Matthynssens, of the Belgian contemporary music group Nadar Ensemble. He regularly performs with the improvised music collective reFLEXible, of which he is a founding member, and whose performances often include video, dance, and installations. He is also a member of the group “Ministry of Bad Decisions” (with Yaron Deutsch, electric guitar, and Brian Archinal, percussion).

In his activities as both a composer and an improvisor of electronic music, Prins is interested in exploring the relationships between human beings and technology, focusing on the ways in which the latter has influenced the human condition in contemporary society through the widespread use of social media, webcams, video surveillance, video games, and smartphones. In particular, he probes the line which separates the real from the virtual (cf. Generation Kill, 2012).

Prins’ works have been programmed in festivals such as Donaueschinger Musiktage, Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik, Darmstadt Summer Courses, Forum Neuer Musik Deutschlandfunk, Eclat, Ultima, Musica Strasbourg, Wien Modern, Ars Musica, Novembermusic, Transit Festival, Time Canvas, Musica Electronica Nova, Lucerne Festival, Tzlil Meudcan, Impuls, Huddersfield, and Musica Viva.

He has received numerous accolades, including the KBC Aquarius Composition Award for Young Composers (Brussels, 2001), Week of the Contemporary Music (Ghent, 2006; 2nd Prize), Staubach Honorarium (2009), International Impuls Composition Award (Graz, 2009), and the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis for Composition (2010). In 2012, he was named Belgian Musician of the Year by the Union of Belgian Music Critics, and in 2014, he was awarded the ISCM Young Composers Award and became a laureate of the Royal Belgian Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2016, he received the Berlin Kunstpreis für Musik. Since March 2020, he’s appointed Professor of Composition and director of the Hybrid Music Lab at the Hochschule für Musik “Carl Maria Von Weber” Dresden.

Recordings of several of his works have been released on the Wergo, Neos, and Sub Rosa labels.


© Ircam-Centre Pompidou, 2017

Sources

Site personnel du compositeur

  • Solo (excluding voice)
  • Chamber music
  • Instrumental ensemble music
    • Körper for chamber orchestra (2009), 6 mn
    • elec Plug'n Play for laptop and brass ensemble (2010), 10 mn
    • elec I'm your body for amplified quartet, ensemble and 4-track tape (2013-2014), 13 mn
    • elec stage Third Space for 7 dancers, 10 musicians, conductor, live-electronics and live-video (2016-2018), 1 h 20 mn
    • elec Mirror Box Reflections for 9 dynamically amplified musicians and live-electronics (2019), 23 mn
  • Concertant music
    • elec inhabit_inhibit for 6 feedback-enhanced soloists, 4 acoustic, mixed quartets and live electronics (2019-2021), 50 mn
    • under_current for electric guitar and symphony orchestra (2019-2021), 38 mn
  • Electronic music / fixed media / mechanical musical instruments

Liens internet

(liens vérifiés en janvier 2023).

Bibliographie

  • Tomasz BIERNACKI, « Alien bodies. Stefan Prins’ aesthetics of music », dans Dissonance, n° 125, 2013, p. 34-39. Article en ligne : https://www.dissonance.ch/upload/pdf/125_34_hb_bie_prins.pdf
  • Stefan PRINS, « Über das Multidimensionale », dans MusikTexte, Heft 145, mai 2015, p. 66-67.
  • Stefan PRINS, « Theater van het hybride lichaam. Bewegen in onze augmented reality », dans Kunsttijdschrift Vlaanderen, nr. 353, avril 2015.

Discographie

  • Stefan PRINS, Generation Kill ; Mirror Box Extensions ; Piano Hero #1–4 ; Third Space ; Not I ; Infiltrationen 3.0, dans « Augmented », 1 DVD et 1 CD Kairos, 2019, 0015044KAI.
  • Stefan PRINS, Mirror Box (Flesh+Prosthesis #3), Trio Accanto, dans « Funanbules » avec des œuvres de Georges Apeghis, Rolf Riehm, Johannes Schöllhorn, 1 cd Wergo, 2017, WER73582.
  • Stefan PRINS, Mirror Box Extensions, Nadar Ensemble, dans « Donaueschinger Musiktage 2015 » avec des œuvres de Georg Friedrich Haas, Mark Andre, Francesco Filidei, … et al., 2 cd Neos, 2016, 11611-12.
  • Stefan PRINS, Fremdkörper #1, Nadar Ensemble, « Darmstadt Aural Document - Box 3 » avec des œuvres de Hanns Jelinek, Herbert Brün, Franco Evangelisti, … et al., 7 cd Neos, 2016, 11230.
  • Stefan PRINS, Generation  Kill, Nadar Ensemble, dans « Donaueschinger Musiktage 2012 », avec des œuvres de Malin Bång, Franck Bedrossian, Beat Furrer, … et al., 3 cd Neos, 2013, 11303-05.
  • Stefan PRINS, Fremdkörper #1, Erosie, Infiltrationen, Ensuite, Ventriloquium, Fremdkörper #3, Étude intérieure, Fremdkörper #2, Not I, This is it!, dans « Fremdkörper », 2 cd Sub Rosa, 2012, SR339.