Siraseth pantura-umporn

Self taught music composition from age 15 years old and forwarded his interesting in contemporary music before entering the Department of Western Music, Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand at the age of 18 years old He studied music composition with Prof. Narongrit Dhamabutra and Prof. Weerachat Premananda. In year 2002, he won the 23rd Irino Prize for Orchestra, one of the most renowned composition competition in Japan. His work “Chromosphere (poem of the sun)” written for orchestra of 65 musicians was performed in year 2004 by the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Christian Arming. In the year 2004 he was supported by the Fund for Classical Music Promotion under the Royal Patronage of H.R.H Princess Galyanivadhana of Thailand to attend the Stockhausen course for composition and interpretation which conducted by Karlheinz Stockhausen himself in Kürten, Germany. He was commissioned by The New Music Festival Phnom Penh in Cambodia, 2005. He participated in Asian Music Festival in the year of 2003. ACL World New Music Festival and Conference 2005 and ISCM-ACL Music Festival in 2007. Only 2003 and 2007 that he represented Thailand as a young composer in the ACL-Asian Music Festival. In 2004-2006, He won the Young Thai Artist Award 3 times consequently. In the 2006, his piece “Farbentraum” was selected as a finalist in the Thailand International Composition Competition for Saxophone led to the performance by Shyen Lee, Saxophonist. In 2007, received full scholarship from Tongyeong International Music Festival to attend the TIMF Academy in Korea.

His works have been performed by New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra Internazionale d’Italia, Ensemble Kochi, Ensemble TIMF and TIMF Academy Ensemble, New Siam Wind Quintet, Luxembourg Sinfonietta, and several times by Members of Bangkok Symphony Orchestra. And conductor Bundit Ungrangsee,The compositions have been performed in many Asian countries such as Japan, Cambodia, Korea, Hong Kong and in Thailand regularly

Musical concepts

Most of his compositions mainly concentrate on the instrumental texture and the instrumental tone colour. He has thought that every sound has its own beauty whatever it has been produced. So, his pieces present only aspect of tone colour and its mixture. His early orchestral works were influenced from Iannis Xenakis's music in using non-octaviated scale and orchestral texture as well as sound mass.

His idea of music including an exploration of 3 dimensional space.In his piece "Polyphonic dimensions",is mainly focused on a notion of space in 3 dimensions - space of pitch, space of intensity and space of time. This piece is an attempt of the composer to make all notes have its own free duration called free duration note. If looking at the score, we would find that it's rather complex because every notes are indicated by parametric numbers called unit.Even though his music seems to be a parametric composition but his recent pieces are also incorporate the use of Thai musical style in various . For instance, the use of heterophonic texture and its transformation, moving pentatonic, Thai rhythmic pattern, vocal in Thai classical music, and the use of microtone to resembling the sound of Thai tuning system.

There are some example of the piece that show an influence of his Thai musical root. "Eine lange Stimme" for 6 musicians was composed by using many material from thai music called "Naa thap" or repetitive rhythmic cell which appear in thai traditional music. Such material has been transformed into his own musical language,which intermingle between eastern and western music. His composition Concerto for piano and orchestra, Untitled 5/2550 for symphonic band and "Luklohr-Lukkhad" for violin and piano represent distinctively how he brought two musical world together.

Furthermore, The indeterminacy or chance is also one of his favorite way of writing. "Erste Klang" as well, it's not expose only the idea of drone tone and meditation but also the way of tempo improvisation. Each bar need to be played within one breath, no need to count, but we always have to contemplate as well as meditate. "We must always focus mindfully on every seconds of life, we have to perceive every breath of our life" this is what he want to say through this piece. This piece reflects not only on the eastern tradition but also the thought of buddhism philosophy,from which he has absorbed since he was very young. His piece "6x3" for 6 groups of jazz musicians playing 16 bars of tune with chords. "Trio II (in 3 versions)" has been written in aleatoric musical style but different in the inside philosophy.

The new serie of compositions named "Untitled" running from 1/2550 to .../2550 are the implication of abstract music. The name of piece is not any clue word for content itself. 2550 is the buddhist Era which is equal to A.D. 2007. Number in in the name of composition are only order of composition in the following year. for the year 2008, the piece in the serie Untitled 2551 is composed.

Compositions by categories

Orchestra

Chromosphere(poem of the sun) (2001-2002)

Momentum ‘A’ (2002) for Orchestra of 89 musicians

Nebula (2002) for Orchestra of 90 musicians

Seascape (2003) for Orchestra of 91 musicians

Folkpiece (2004) for orchestra of 76 musicians

Time:Space:Colours (2003-2004) for Orchestra of 90 musicians

Whitenoise;Sinewave] [http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/cgi-bin/show_score.pl?scoreid=71905] (2004) for orchestra of 78 musicians

Stream (2004-2005) for orchestra of 90 musicians

Fortsetzung (2006) for orchestra of 66 musicians

Concerto(2006-2007) for piano and orchestra

HK (2007) for Orchestra

Chamber music

Concrete and Abstract (2001) for cello and piano

31/01/2001 (2001/2002) for strings quintet Landscape (2002) for 9 musicians

Blackpoint on the white surface (2003) for flute solo and 7 musicians

Trio (2003) for 2 violins and Cello

Sept Métaux (2002-2004) for 7 metallic percussions(3 percussionists)

Polyphonic dimensions (2004) for 2 flutes

Trio II (2004-2005) for 3 groups of duo (3 versions)

Eine lange Stimme (2005) for 6 musicians

Quartet I (2005) for piano, 2 violins, cello

Trio IV (2005-2006) for flute, oboe, bassoon

Luklohr-Lukkhad (2007) for violin and piano

Resonance pour une grande princess (2007) for violin and piano

Quartet III for clarinet, violin, cello, piano

Untitled 8/2550 (2007) for Horn and Piano

Trio V (2007) for Piano, Clarinet, Viola

Chamber ensemble

Momentum ‘B’ (2002) for 12 Clarinets

Essence of subconscious (2002) for 18 musicians

Lithos (2002-2003) for 16 musicians

Movement of Fire (2003) for 15 musicians

6x3 (2004) for 6 groups of jazz trio

Time : Space : Colours II (2004) for 27 musicians

The Second Coming(2005) for mixed chorus, violin solo and 11 musicians

Symphonic Band

Untitled 5/2550 for cymphonic band

Solo

Élefthéreea (2002) for Amplified Violin solo unaccompaniement

Encore (2003) for Clarinet solo unaccompaniement Untitled 1/2544 (2001/2004) for Vibraphone solo unaccompaniement

Erste Klang (2005) meditative drone for violin solo unaccompaniement

Farbentraum (2005) for tenor saxophone solo unaccompaniement

Voices from a distant past (2005-2006) for violoncello solo unaccompaniement

Untitled 3/2550 (2007) for Bassoon solo unaccompaniement

Untitled 1/2550 (2007) for Oboe solo unaccompaniement

Untitled 9/2550 (2007) for Clarinet solo unaccompaniement

Arupajhana 4 (2007) for amplified contrabass solo unaccompaniement

Untitled 4/2550 (2007) for Guitar solo unaccompaniement

Untitled 7/2550 (2007) for Contrabass solo unaccompaniement

Electroacoustic music

Symphony for Electroacoustics (2004) - Electroacoustic music (2 Tracks) Flowing (2005) for piano and electroacoustic music (2 Tracks)

External links

ISCM-ACL 2007: [http://www.hkcg.org/2007worldmusic/]

Tongyeong International Music Festival: [http://www.timf.org]

Irino Prize : [http://www.jml-irino.jp/IrinoPrize/index.html]

" The scores are self-published by the composer"'