Georg Hajdu, born 1960, is a German composer and professor. After studies in molecular biology and composition in Cologne and computer music at UC Berkeley's Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT), he graduated with a PhD in 1994. In May 2002, his networked performance environment Quintet.net was used in Manfred Stahnke's opera Orpheus Kristall on the occasion of the Munich Biennale. In the same year, he was appointed professor of multimedia composition at the Hamburg University of Music and Drama (HfMT), where he founded Germany’s first master’s program in multimedia composition in 2004, and the Center for Microtonal Music and Multimedia (ZM4) in 2012. In 2010, he was artist in residence at the Goethe Institute in Boston as well as visiting professor at Northeastern University. He has also been involved in a number of national and international ventures such as the Culture 2007 project CO-ME-DI-A on networked music performance and is the founding director of the ligeti center. Photo: Jasmin Gritzka
Stephen Weigel is a composer and performer of Indianapolis, IN, and got both his Master’s in Music Composition and Bachelor’s of Music Media Production at Ball State University. His past teachers include Jody Nagel, Michael Pounds, Derek Johnson, Amelia Kaplan, Daniel Swilley, Eleanor Trawick, and Keith Kothman. Stephen’s contributions have been featured at UnTwelve, Electronic Music Midwest, Charlotte New Music Festival, Electroacoustic Barn Dance, Classical Connect, Edition Zalzal, MU Global, Thirsty Ear, SEAMUS, Microtonal Adventures Festival, Pärnu Nüüdismuusika Päevade, and Hindemith & Copland International Festival. His music is melodic, intelligible, and purpose-driven, though conceptual premises vary wildly - compositional goals may include finding new-sounding chord progressions and melodies, evoking unfamiliar or diverse emotions, poking fun at social ideas, or making sense of uncharted territory. His specialties are electronics and xenharmonic music, which he often plays live using DIY keyboard interfaces, guitars, and the voice. In graduate school, he wrote about all-scalar-set theory, which is the mathematical link between Forte’s post-tonal set theory and Wilson’s Moment of Symmetry theories. Other endeavors include the microtonal podcast featuring Sevish (Now and Xen), appearances on online albums/microtonal cover songs/transcriptions, and keyboard arrangements of Easley Blackwood’s microtonal etudes.
Stephen Altoft is dedicated to the creation of new repertoire for the trumpet. As a solo artist, and with percussionist Lee Ferguson as duo Contour, he has given concerts throughout Asia, Europe, the United States and Canada. For over twenty years he has been researching the microtonal possibilities of the trumpet with composer, Donald Bousted, and has developed a fourth (rotary) valve mechanism to enable the conversion of his existing trumpets into microtonal instruments (a 19-division B flat trumpet and quarter-tone C trumpet). More recently, he has also been developing programmes for flugel horn in 12-, 19- and 24- divisions of the octave.
Stephen studied at the University of Huddersfield (1991-5) where he was awarded B.Mus Honours and Masters degrees (in performance) and the Ricordi Prize for Contemporary Performance. This was followed by periods of private study with Markus Stockhausen (Cologne 1996-8) and, with assistance from the Music Sound Foundation, with William Forman (Berlin 1998-1999).
Stephen is co-director of Microtonal Projects, and Manages the EUROMicroFest. He teaches at the music school in Waldkirch.