Artistic Statement
I prefer musical material that is raw, that is to say it mimics physical gestures and phenomena, such as breathing, shouting, whispering, the pulsation of the heart, the undulation of sea waves; and material that makes references to archetypal musical expressions, such as lamentations, drones, and heterophonic singing. This material undergoes two different compositional processes: the first develops and transforms it according to highly formalized processes, which are informed by ideas from mathematics and computational sciences, such as group theory, evolutionary algorithms, and logic circuits. The second compositional practice takes the results of the first and treats them the way a cubist painter treats reality: it shatters them into a million dimensions and recomposes them in a subjective, nonlinear narrative, akin to the process of reconstruction we undergo in our imagination when we try to recall an event that is distant, but striking.
Biography
Stratis Minakakis is a composer and conductor whose work engages memory, cultural identity, and art as social testimony; it also explores the rich possibilities engendered by the interaction between arts and sciences.
Described as “emotional, to the point of viscerality” (Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project) and “an alluring haze” (New York Times), his music has been commissioned and performed by leading contemporary music soloists and ensembles. He has received commissions from the Grammy award-winning Crossing Choir, Prism Saxophone Quartet, and Partch Ensemble, as well as saxophonist Don-Paul Kahl, bassoonist Ben Roidl-Ward, pianist Jihye Chang, and Fonema Consort. Recent collaborators include cellists Annie-Jacobs Perkins and TJ Borden, soprano Nina Dante, flutist Dalia Chin, Ensemble Court-Circuit, the Ergon Ensemble, Ensemble du Bout du Monde, the Valencia International Contemporary Ensemble, and visual artist Marsia Alexander-Clarke.
As a conductor, he has directed and coached numerous ensembles in 20th and 21st-century repertory. Performance highlights include the U.S. premiere of Sciarrino’s monumental Quaderno di Strada (Alinèa Ensemble), the Boston premiere of Ligeti’s Nouvelles Aventures (Alinèa Ensemble), and the world premieres of Mathew Rosenblum’s Gymnopédies Nos. 3-7/Kiki Wears Tasha (NotaRiotous Ensemble), Ken Ueno’s New Lilacs (Partch Ensemble, Prism Saxophone Quartet) and John Aylward’s opera Oblivion (ECCE ensemble).
A highly sought-after studio instructor, he has taught in numerous institutions and festivals in the United States and Europe. His pedagogical work has received numerous accolades, including the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at the University of Pennsylvania and the prestigious Louis Krasner Award for Teaching Excellence at New England Conservatory, where he currently teaches in the Composition and Theory Departments.
Press
Album Review: April 14, 2024 | The Saxophone Symposium
Don-Paul Kahl: Go Within
Concert Review: Feb. 7, 2019 | Boston Musical Intelligencer
NEC Composers Shine
Album Review: June 1, 2018 | Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review
The Crossing, If There Were Water, Music of Stratis Minakakis and Gregory W. Brown, Donald Nally
Album Review: May, 2018 | Gramophone
Shadow Etchings: New Music for Flute
Concert Review: April 7, 2018 | Chicago Classical Review
Vocal virtuosity and imagination open Resonant Bodies Festival
Album Review: April 14, 2017 | National Sawdust
PRISM Quartet, Color Theory
Concert Review: June 15, 2016 | The New York Times
Man, Can You Hear That Crazy Forest Green?
Press Quotes
“[For Felipe M.] invites the audience to experience an “inward journey.”
“[Crossings’ Cycle is] a musical score that is freshly and vividly situated in a sort of ancient ritualistic-in-Contemporary-Modern harmonically spicy-tangy palette extraordinaire”
“Greek composer Stratis Minakakis’ work is founded on his rich cultural history, and maintains a strong sense of the ancient in a modern aesthetic. It is highly emotional, to the point of viscerality. ”
“ [Skiagrafies I] proceeds, wraithlike, through subtle, striking shifts; the effect is something like watching shadows cast by clouds while the sun arcs slowly across the sky, the resulting permutations continually waxing and waning in intensity.”
“The shadow world of Skiagrafies proved to be an alluring haze”
“[AGGELOI III] is a kind of hyper-intense miniature vocal scena with six text lines running at once…truly virtuosic piece of vocal theater.”
“The outbursts [of Contrafactum], packed with active lines that shattered the intense, unending stasis, felt most welcome, as everything felt rather restless and intense throughout.”