The career of the Catalan pianist Josep-Maria Balanyà, born in Barcelona, with more than 40 years on stage, 27 albums recorded and more than 140 works, has taken him from classical music and jazz to his specialisation into the field of improvisation and new contemporary music, experimental music and performance. Internationally recognised, Balanyà is also composer, conductor of improvising orchestras, sound artist, painter and photographer.

Josep-Maria Balanyà explores the limits of music in his compositions and performances. He is particularly interested in the combination of different arts and the transfer of art into music. In order to expand and deepen his preoccupation with the fine arts and also with the craft material, he attended courses in painting and etching at the European Academy of Fine Arts in Trier (Europäische Kunstakademie Trier) / Germany.

Under the auspices and organization of the head of the Academy, Dr. Gabriele Lohberg, Balanyà performed for many years a series of interactive concert-performances in the Kunsthalle of the Academy, where fine arts were combined with music and performance. Here he experimented with the interaction between the sounds that arise when working on copper etching plates and the artistic result. He worked with the metal workshop that made or provided sculptures for musical performances. The works are now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in Tarragona. In a teaching assignment for the students of the European Art Academy, he devoted himself to the music images of contemporary compositions and suggested using them as a basis for further musically interpretable drawings. In performative concerts, he not only made musical instruments sound, but - with electronic amplification and alienation - sculptures (Pierre Wéber), paintings (class Joe Allen), bodies (models from the art academy) and objets trouvés as well.

As part of these projects, Balanyà even gave a concert of bells in the cathedral of Trier.

Mainly, his own art production focuses on abstract paintings in which he uses mixed media, but especially acrylic on canvas. His work can be seen in his private gallery in Brussels and in buyers' homes. In addition, he has studied photography and practiced this art since adolescence. His work has followed a process ranging from pictorialism, to direct photography, street photography, macro technique and the study of the human body. He is currently preparing several exhibitions in which he presents a series of impressionist-style photos with movement; this technique gives an abstract pictorial result.

As for his main field, music, Balanyà studied in Barcelona and Switzerland (Swiss Jazz School and Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Bern), he attended composition workshops, led by Helmut Lachenmann, Walter Zimmermann and Ivan Fedele, and improvisation workshops by Borah Bergman in New York. He carried out intensive research into the sounds of nature in Mexico, working with oceanographers and biologists, including mammalogist Bernardo Villa.

Most of his works have a significant amount of improvisation. His work as a solo pianist combines the pure sound of the instrument with prepared or manipulated piano techniques. He has presented various multimedia projects for piano, voice, live electronics, video, Butoh dance, as well as percussion pieces on sculptures, sound objects and fine arts tools. He has created sculptures and sound installations that can be played by the public. He has developed his most imaginative actions at the boundary between music and performance, such as a recital in complete darkness at the Sendesaal of Bremen (Germany).

He has played with first-rate musicians including Claudio Pontiggia, Hans Koch, Joachim Kühn, Franz Hautzinger, Carlos Zingaro, Michiel Borstlap, Walter Quintus, Ksenija Lukic, Hannah Marshall, Das Neue Ensemble Hannover, Americo Rodrigues, Ramón López, Paul Rogers, Mark Sanders, Hannah Ma (dance), Mimi Barthélemy, among others.

Balanyà has played in festivals and radio programs in many countries in Europe and America. He has received several grants in Germany (Worpswede, Eckernförde, Düsseldorf) and Switzerland (Fondazione Arp). He is currently based in Brussels and in Barcelona.

The concerts by Balanyà are powerful ​rituals –​ it could be said that he plays the piano with his whole body – during which ​we can perceive the presence of music change into matter.

Belgium - Austria, lives in Brussels

Stephane Ginsburgh has given chamber and solo recitals all over the world and has performed at numerous international festivals, such as Ars Musica (Brussels), Quincena Musical (San Sebastian), ZKM Imatronic (Karksruhe), Agora (Paris), Bach Academie Brugge, Ultima Oslo, Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse, Gaida (Vilnius), Warsaw Autumn, Festival Klara (Brussels) and Musica Strasbourg.

A tireless researcher of repertoire, but also an explorer of new combinations combining voice, percussion, performance and electronics, he devoted himself early on to contemporary music, while developing a vast classical repertoire. He plays regularly with the ensemble Ictus and has collaborated with many composers such as Frederic Rzewski, James Tenney, Philippe Boesmans, Jean-Luc Fafchamps, Stefan Prins and Matthew Shlomowitz, whose works he has premiered. He has also worked with choreographers such as Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and visual artists such as Peter Downsbrough and Kurt Ralske.

Stephane Ginsburgh has recorded the complete Prokofiev Piano Sonatas for Cypres Records; works by Feldman, Duchamp, Satie, and Fafchamps for Sub Rosa; and David Toub as a world premiere for World Edition. In 2018, Grand Piano / NAXOS released the world premiere of "Bad-Tempered Electronic Keyboard", a cycle of 24 Preludes and Fugues by composer and writer Anthony Burgess. His latest recording is dedicated to "Piano Hero" on an album by Stefan Prins on Kairos.

Ginsburgh studied piano with Paul Badura-Skoda, Jerome Lowenthal, Vitaly Margulis and Claude Helffer. He also holds a B.A. in philosophy of science from the U.L.B. and a doctorate in arts from the V.U.B.

www.ginsburgh.net/