Clara Olivares, compositrice / composer

Short bio

Clara Olivares, born in 1993, holds a doctorate in composition from the University of Berkeley, California. At twenty-three, she wrote her first opera, Mary, for ensemble, puppets and real-time electronics, premiered in 2017 by Ensemble XXI.n. In 2019, she was selected for the Academy Opera in Creation of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and won the Nicola DeLorenzo Composition Prize. In 2020, she obtained the Beaumarchais-SACD scholarship for lyrical writing with the librettist Chloé Lechat. That same year, she took the composition and computer music course at Ircam. She has been a laureate of the Banque Populaire Foundation since 2021. Her works have been premiered by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Arditti Quartet, Ensemble Intercontemporain and Accentus Chamber Choir, among others. Clara Olivares is associate-composer of Paris Chamber Orchestra for the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 seasons.

Long bio

Clara Olivares, a Franco-Spanish composer, was born in Strasbourg in 1993 based in Paris.

After studying the piano at the Conservatory of Strasbourg, she entered the composition curriculum with Mark André in 2011, where she continued studying with Philippe Manoury, Daniel D’Adamo, Thierry Blondeau and Annette Schlüntz. She also received advice from Philippe Schoeller.

She holds a Master’s degree in composition from the Académie Supérieure de Musique in Strasbourg and a Bachelor degree in musicology from the Sorbonne University, as well as a Diploma of Musical Studies in Piano and Chamber Music. She holds a PhD of musical composition since 2021 from the University of California at Berkeley (USA), under Franck Bedrossian, Carmine Cella, Ed Campion and Ken Ueno.

She won the Prix de la Sacem in 2013 for obtaining her DEM in composition with unanimous honors, as well as the Musical Composition Grant from the Michelle Foundation (Luxembourg) in 2015. She was performed, among others, at the Musica Festival in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2021, at the Festival Présences and at the String Quartet Biennale (Philharmonie de Paris) in 2022, as well as at the Impuls Festival (Germany) and at the Musique-Action Festival.

She has been selected twice for ManiFeste Academy at Ircam (France): in 2015 for the electronic music workshop and in 2018 for the orchestra composition workshop. She is admitted at the Ircam Cursus Program on Composition and Computer Music 2020/21. The following year, she composed Vers mes ciels regards pleins d’ivresse at Ircam (commissioned by Ircam/Radio France/Ensemble Intercontemporain for the Festival Présences 2022).

At 23, she wrote her first opera, Mary, for which she obtained an « aide à la création » from the Ministry of Culture. It was premiered in 2017 by the Ensemble XXI.n.

She participated in 2019 in the Opera Academy at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence under Pascal Dusapin, then was selected for the 2022 edition of the Women Opera Makers Academy. She won the Nicola DeLorenzo Composition Prize in 2019.

Her works have been performed by Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France, Orchestre de chambre de Paris, UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra (United States), Mitteldeutsche Kammerphilharmonie (Germany), Ensemble Fonema Consort, Ensemble Sound Icon, Ensemble Eco, Ensemble Vocal Quince (USA), Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble XXI.n (France), United Instruments of Lucilin (Luxembourg), Ensemble Sonido Extremo (Spain), the Duo Atomos (Brazil), the Duo Mazumal (United States), the Accentus Chamber Choir, Vocal Ensemble Voix de Stras’, Vocal Ensemble L’Arrach’Chœur, Ensemble Mora Vocis (France), Arditti Quartet (Great Britain), as well as by Jean-Frédéric Neuburger, Philippe Hattat, Daniel Ciampolini, Rémi Schwartz and Minh-Tam Nguyen (from the Percussions de Strasbourg), Marie-Andrée Joerger, Claude Georgel, Szuwha Wu, Keiko Murakami, and has worked with the following conductors: Duncan Ward, David Milnes, Peter Rundel, Aki Schmitt, Hanz Kretz, Pierre Hoppé and Catherine Bolzinger. She wrote two plays in the IRCAM studios.

Her music has been performed in the United States (San Francisco, Los Angeles, Berkeley), in Finland, in France (Strasbourg, Paris, Nice, Pigna, Nancy…) in Spain (Madrid, Valencia, Badajoz, Alicante, Bilbao), in Germany, Brazil, Venezuela and Luxembourg. It was broadcast on the radio (France Musique, Radio Accent 4, RCF, Radio Nacional de España, Radio MDR Figaro). Several of her pieces (pedagogical) are published by Editions Alphonse Leduc and Editions Accordinova. These same pieces were scheduled for the Artistic Competition of Epinal in 2016 and for the end-of-year exams of the Conservatoire Régional de Paris in 2019.

She is Associate-Composer at the Paris Chamber Orchestra during the 2020/2021 season.