Biography

c o m p o s e r

Olga Krashenko was born in 1983 in Kaliningrad wher she began her music studies at the age of seven. After preliminary music studies at the local and regional levels, she studied primarily composition at the National Conservatoire of Saint-Petersburg "Rimski-Korsakov" from whom she graduated in 2008, having followed the classes of composition of Professors B.Tischenko and V.Citovich. Olga Krashenko then attended workshops with the Ensemble Recherche at the Ensemble Academy Freiburg (2007), with André Richard studying how to interpret the electronic parts of works by Luigi Nono (2007) and with Tristan Murail. A scholarship was awarded to her in order to attend the workshops of the Biennale of Venice 2008, including the Laboratory "Sensitive Space" with Beat Furrer.

She was also awarded further scholarships to attend the Stockhausen Summer Courses in 2008 and in 2009. She completed her advanced studies in composition ("niveau supérieur") at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, class of Professor E. Lejet including a a compositional workshop with members of the Ensemble Alternance of Paris, for whom she wrote a piece.

In 2009 Olga Krashenko was awarded a fully expense paid residency to compose a new work for flute and electronics at the Studio Varèse in Paris. In April 2010, she presented a new ensemble piece in the master-class of the Paris based Ensemble Alternance. She was winner of the competition "Call for Scores" of the organization Sound Plasticity (Moscow, 2009) and finalist of the International Composer Competition IIC (Melbourne 2010).

Her compositions were performed in many festivals in Saint-Petersburg, in Moscow and other cities of Russia by the Academic Orchestra of Saint-Petersburg Conservatory, the Kaliningrad Symphonic Orchestra, Demetrius Spaneas, Alexey Shmurak, Michail Krutik, Alexandra Korobkina, Elya Kulukaeva, Guzel Sajfutdinova, Elena Malyuk and others. At concerts in Europe and in the USA, her pieces were given their world premieres by such world reknown soloists such as Dimitri Vassilakis (Ensemble Intercontemporain), Cecile Daroux (Ensemble Itinéraire), Pierre-Stephane Meugé, Jacqueline Mefano (Ensemble 2e2m), Maurizio Barbetti, Ana Telles, Thomas Keck, Shanna Gutierrez, and Dario Garau. Her music was also played by such ensembles as Quartet New Generation, Konvergence, Seldom Sene, Dal Niente, Con Moto, CLSI and the Orchestre de Flûtes Français.

Finalist of N.Scorpion Music Composition Competition 2024, winner of SOUND/IMAGE 23 (University of Greenwich, London), PEAK 22 (New Music Milwaukee), «Call for Scores Bent Frequency Underscore» 22 and KEAMSAC 2021 (the Conference and the Journal of the Korea Electro-Acoustic Music Society). Winner of «Call for Works for Glissando Flute, MicroFest Prague 2020». Her CD with the opera «Macondo» was released in 2021 in France (ACEL Label). SACEM member, сurrently she is a PhD researcher at Maynooth University with John & Pat Hume Doctoral Scholarship Award.

Featured works

2024

Book "Research on Musical Holes"

In my book "Research on Musical Holes", I developed a method of musical thinking that goes beyond traditional musicology. The book researches the contradictions, paradoxes and missing elements in music as a concept and all extra-musical elements connected with it. Many such things are usually not addressed in studies that try to present music theory in the form of clear, precise distinctions. In this book, familiar musical concepts are subjected to deconstruction, a search for contradictions and ambiguities, and discussions about what is missing (and, in general, about the concept of freedom due to absence). Musical holes will be identified and made analyzable. If one is sure that the definition of music and its components, as well as, the process of its creation and the localization of its sounds in space and time, are all somethings that are very obvious and simple, then this book will give rise to doubts, rethinking, and a radical new look at music as concept and sonic phenomenon. This could be the equivalent of certain logical paradoxes in philosophy and the unconsciousness as blind spots and half-truths in Lacanian psychoanalysis.

2023

Opera "Tintagiles"

The video-opera «Tintagiles» is based on the play of Maurice Maeterlinck «The Death of Tintagiles». The video-opera genre combines sound and motion by creating a fusion made with synesthesia in the case of this composition. The opera includes 7 characters with electronics (multi-channel tape) and a special video. The length of the opera is 2 h. 30 min. The form consists of 5 acts as well as a prelude, a postlude and 4 interludes.

2021

CD of the opera "Macondo"

Sound poetry libretto written by Olga Krashenko, inspired by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Opera for 4 soloist-instrumentalists, choir, ensembles, orchestras and concrete sounds. Soloists: members of the ensemble C.L.S.I. (Circle for the Liberation of Sound and Image). Vocal, instrumental and concrete sounds composed and recorded by Olga Krashenko. The opera is dedicated to the memory of the writer G.G. Marquez.

Article

Synesthesia of Sound in Colour and Motion

on the example of video-opera “Tintagiles”

If at the neurophysiological level we are dealing with the borderline state of different zones and their intersection, which is typical for synesthesia, then in the field of art, the genre of opera already initially allows you to combine different ways of perception into one experience, thus overcoming the resulting separation and fragmentation of specializations in art and recreating the synthesis with the help of modern means and technologies.

Today opera continues to be relevant, and not only within the walls of opera houses, but also beyond them. The opera “Tintagiles” based on Maurice Maeterlinck's play “The Death of Tintagiles” is an example of a video opera (2017-2022) in which textual, musical and light-color symbols are synesthetically combined with the help of modern sound and video recording technologies and where their interweaving covers the whole range of possible associations, from the literal to the distant and abstract.