Guest Speakers

Gra­ham McKenzie

Graham McKenzie, keynote speaker

Artis­tic direc­tor of the Hud­der­s­field Con­tem­po­rary Music Fes­ti­val, UK

Born 1958 Glas­gow, Scot­land. Artis­tic Direc­tor & Chief Exec­u­tive for the Hud­der­s­field Con­tem­po­rary Music Fes­ti­val since Jan­u­ary 2006. Direc­tor of the Cen­tre for Con­tem­po­rary Arts, Glas­gow (CCA) from 1997 — 2006, where he raised £10.2 mil­lion pounds (£7.5 mil­lion from Scot­tish Arts Coun­cil Lot­tery Fund remains the high­est arts lot­tery award in Scot­land to date). Project Man­aged and over­saw the major cap­i­tal re-devel­op­ment of the CCA, re-open­ing the Cen­tre in 2001. Prin­ci­pal Arts Offi­cer for the South East Area Glas­gow City Coun­cil 1990 — 1997. For­mer Social Work­er and Wel­fare Rights Officer.

Gra­ham McKen­zie is a cura­tor and writer in the field of exper­i­men­tal music, and in par­tic­u­lar free impro­vi­sa­tion. Pro­gramme Advi­sor to the Glas­gow Inter­na­tion­al Jazz Fes­ti­val. Co-Founder and Direc­tor of the Inter­na­tion­al Cen­tre for Impro­vi­sa­tion­al Stud­ies (ICIS) and ISIS MUSIC, a Glas­gow-based record label for exper­i­men­tal music. Founder and Co-Cura­tor of Free RadiCCAl’s with saxophonist/improviser Evan Park­er. Founder of Sub­cur­rent Festival.

Found­ing mem­ber and Non Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Cul­tur­al Enter­prise Office (CEO) Glas­gow — part of the Busi­ness Gate­way net­work offer­ing one-to-one busi­ness advice and train­ing to artists. This pro­gramme has recent­ly gone nation­al across Scot­land with four offices across the major cities.

Gra­ham McKen­zie has writ­ten for stage, radio and television.

Jarko Aikens

Jarko Aikens

Artis­tic Coor­di­na­tor of the Muziekge­bouw aan ’t IJ

Jarko Aikens (1949) was edu­cat­ed as a graph­ic design­er and pho­tog­ra­ph­er, and has worked in the clas­si­cal music indus­try since 1976 — in the ear­ly years in the field of mar­ket­ing for two major sym­pho­ny orches­tras, and lat­er as an orches­tra man­ag­er. In 2000 he became head of pro­duc­tion of Muziek­cen­trum de IJs­brek­er, Holland’s lead­ing plat­form for con­tem­po­rary music locat­ed on the bor­ders of the riv­er Ams­tel in Ams­ter­dam. In 2005 the IJs­brek­er orga­ni­za­tion moved into its splen­did new, and now inter­na­tion­al­ly wide­ly praised home, the Muziekge­bouw aan ‘t IJ, where he became artis­tic coor­di­na­tor. Since June 2008 the posi­tion of gen­er­al man­ag­er of the Muziekge­bouw has been giv­en to Tino Hae­nen, who suc­ceed­ed ini­tia­tor Jan Wolff.

David Lang

David Lang

Com­pos­er and co-founder/­co-direc­tor of the Bang on a Can Fes­ti­val, New York

David Lang is the recip­i­ent of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Music for the lit­tle match girl pas­sion, com­mis­sioned by Carnegie Hall for the vocal ensem­ble The­ater of Voic­es, direct­ed by Paul Hilli­er. One of America’s most per­formed and hon­ored com­posers, his recent works include writ­ing on water for the Lon­don Sin­foni­et­ta, with libret­to and visu­als by Eng­lish film­mak­er Peter Green­away; the dif­fi­cul­ty of cross­ing a field — a ful­ly staged opera for the Kro­nos Quar­tet, staged by Carey Perloff and the Amer­i­can Con­ser­va­to­ry The­ater; loud love songs, a con­cer­to for the per­cus­sion­ist Eve­lyn Glen­nie, and the ora­to­rio Shel­ter, with co-com­posers Michael Gor­don and Julia Wolfe, at the Next Wave Fes­ti­val of the Brook­lyn Acad­e­my of Music, staged by Ridge The­ater and fea­tur­ing the Nor­we­gian vocal ensem­ble Trio Medi­ae­val. His most recent CD is Ele­vat­ed (on Can­taloupe), three atmos­pher­ic and med­i­ta­tive pieces plus a DVD of the same three pieces inter­pret­ed by not­ed visu­al artists William Weg­man, Bill Mor­ri­son and Matt Mul­li­can. Lang is co-founder and co-artis­tic direc­tor of New York’s leg­endary music fes­ti­val, Bang on a Can.