Composition

The complementary nature of our professors’ academic paths and fields of expertise means enables the students to find their own personal path and start to sketch out their profiles as creative performers.

The composition class offers its students numerous experiences that will enable them to bring their projects up against the realities of putting on a performance and weaving the kind of extensive artistic web that is indispensable for the development of their future professional trajectory. The quality of the teaching and the way our professors have thrived on the international scene means that our students can throw themselves into the profession and identify fruitful collaborations that will enable their art to flourish. In the near future, a course on composition for the moving image and the cinema is also going to be offered.

The advantages of the composition class include:

• State-of-the-art equipment:

The composition class works closely with ARTeM, which provides numerous computer workstations, a blackbox and a studio equipped with the most high-performance spatialization systems enable the students to master the most cutting-edge technological tools. These tools also allow for projection, enabling images and cinema to be incorporated into the students’ projects.

• Unparalleled technical support:

Our students benefit from the support of a professional team of sound and video technicians who enable them to produce and record their works in the best possible conditions, by getting the best out of the state-of-the-art technological equipment made available to them. The team will be by their side to help them learn how to use all the equipment.

• Weekly seminars and Masterclasses:

Bringing the whole class together around a composer, a topic, or a work, the weekly seminars provide a place for encounters, discussions, emulation and inspiration. Moreover, Masterclasses that are organised all year round bring us countless composers, but also important creative artists exploring the fields of multimedia or multidisciplinary creativity. These encounters enable our students to enrich their knowledge and broaden their creative horizons.

• Numerous collaborations within the HEM:

The composition class actively collaborates with the HEM’s other departments. Close ties with the instrumentalists and singers at the school are encouraged. Through these collaborations, our students have the opportunity to make their creative works a reality in real conditions, and at public concerts, whether they involve orchestral music, multimedia performances, a ciné-concert, etc.

• There are close and productive ties with the professional music-making scene:

The HEM collaborates actively with key players in the Swiss contemporary music scene. Every year, the Genevan contemporary creativity ensemble Contrechamps and the Archipel festival reserve a place for the young composers from the class. Forming an integral part of the programming of these two institutions, they thus have the opportunity to weave a network at the international level. Our students also benefit from the exchanges offered by Europe’s Erasmus programme.