Fiona Xue Ju 鞠 雪
CNSMD Lyon
Born in Qingdao, China, Xue Ju (Fiona) spent her early years in Shanghai at the Attached Middle School to the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, where she studied both piano performance and composition. She later moved to the United States where she obtained a Bachelor’s degree in composition from Oberlin Conservatory. She has studied with Grammy Award-winning composer Stephen Hartke, Lewis Nielson, Elizabeth Ogonek, Lyn Goeringer (electronic music), Tom Lopez (electronic music), and Chinese composer Wenpei Ju.
As a composer, she has written a variety of music for chamber ensembles, electronics, films, installation arts, and multimedia collaborations. Her music has been praised for its “fresh-sounding ideas” and described as “aurally fascinating” (Cleveland Classical). As a former musical theatre scholar at Oberlin, she developed skills in theatre music, staging, lighting, and costume design.
In recent years, Fiona has been exploring the connections between music and the other arts, working with visual artists, performance artists, and film directors on collaborative art projects. She is interested in how sound as a medium combines with installation art, interactive design and performance art, to transfer electronic music from the virtual digital area to the physical performance space.
Carmen Kleykens Vidal
CNSMD Lyon
composer from Valencia born in 1998. She moves between improvisation, poetry, graphic design and performance.In the CoPeCo she is looking forward to develop her passion for contemporary music in all senses and work on her project so that it becomes a fact of collective cultural transformation.
Andro Manzoni
Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, EAMT
Percussionist, sound artist and composer that explores acoustic phenomena, auditory perception and the interaction between artists’ personal agency, ability and perception and their art interpretation. His current focus is to develop and test a the new automatised method of directing multidisciplinary performances that will be more inclusive of the different media used on stage while enabling a different interpretation of content with each performance.
Since the age of 14, he has been active through a wide range of artistic disciplines (poetry, dance, music and physical performance). During his eight-years stay in Rijeka (Croatia) he completed his studies in electrical engineering science at the Faculty of Engineering “RiTeh”. In 2016, he enrolled at the Giuseppe Tartini Conservatory of Music in Trieste (Italy), where he studied jazz and modern music for the next three years, mainly focusing on the development of rhythmic complexity and improvisation. Under an Erasmus+ scholarship, he continued his studies in Tallinn at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theater, where he researched performing methods in the field of contemporary art.
Over the past 12 years, he has collaborated in more than 30 music projects, sound installations and performances. He has written two research works “Tools for the development of rhythmic complexity” and “Rhythmic analysis of the frequency beating”. In addition, he is a co-founder and organizer of the art festival “All That Jazz” and cultural events “Jazz on Jaz” in Croatia.
Camila Nebbia
Hamburg University of Music and Theatre, HfMT
Sax player, composer, improviser and multidisciplinary artist from Buenos Aires, Argentina. 
Her artistic practice and work reflects the constant creation of new sound and visual landscapes, exploring the relationship between different forms of composition and free improvisation.
Studied classical saxophone at the Conservatory “Astor Piazzolla”, jazz at the “Manuel de Falla” Conservatory and Film Director at the Universidad Del Cine.
In 2015 won a scholarship from the Fondo Nacional de las Artes (FNA) to asist to a workshop about composition and improvisation in Bariloche, Argentina. In 2017 participated in three music residencies dictated by: Tim Berne, Marilyn Crispell and Ben Goldberg. Participated of the “SIM” workshop directed by Ralph Alessi in New York. Took private lessons with Tony Malaby, Chris Cheek, Luis Natch, Kris Davis, Diego Schissi, among others. In 2018 won together with the band “El devenir del rio” a grant from FNA. In 2019 Won the grant “Raúl Urtazún & Frances Harley” to assit to the workshop of Jazz and Creative music at Banff Centre, Canada. Won the FNA “creation grant” to create new compositions as a result of a deep investigation about gender violence in Argentina. Participates in the online workshop “Ensemble Evolution” dictated by the International Contemporary Ensemble, hosted by the New School of Performing Arts of New York.
Co-created the collective interdisciplinary group and improvised series of women improvisers called “La Jaula se ha vuelto pájaro y se ha volado”. Released as a band leader the albums “A veces la luz de lo que existe resplandece solamente a la distancia” (2017), “De este lado”(2019), Aura (2020).
Elena Perales Andreu
Royal College of Music in Stockholm, KMH
Intuitive, curious and non-conformist by nature, Elena is a versatile clarinetist who works with a specialization in contemporary, experimental and improvised music.
Perales’s interpretative interest is focused in avant-garde music, the composer-performer role, electroacoustic chamber music and feminist musicology. Active as ensemble musician, soloist and improviser musician she has performed in different music festivals in Europe such as
Darmstädter Ferienkurse – Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt (Germany), Ultima Festival (Norway,) Bergen Ung Nordiskk Musikk, (Norway), International Festival Aurora Chamber Music (Sweden), Internationale Junge Orchestarakademie (Germany) and Only Connect (Norway).
Elena is the founder of the improvisation ensemble rimarani (quechuan for I spoke), which employs a heterogeneous amalgam of instruments in its aim for the unique. The diversity in the musicians’ and artist backgrounds manifests itself in remarkable combinations, where acoustic free impro meets tacky electronics, in alternation between madness and beauty, between the repulsive and the bewitching.
She started her composition career when she discovered the social impact this could have.
Elena’s experimentation consists of a combination of interpretation and composition of her own pieces for clarinet and tape, solo clarinet, and chamber music with video.
Elena Perales completed her Bachelor’s degree in Interpretation of Classical and Contemporary Music in the Norwegian Academy of Music.
Bastien Pouillès
Lyon CNSMD
Bastien Pouillès (b. 1994) is a classical and contemporary accordionist and musicologist from France. He studied musicology at the Aix-Marseille University, where he completed a Master’s thesis about music criticism and the writings of composers (particularly from Arthur Honegger). Meanwhile he obtained his First Prize in accordion at the Aix-en-Provence Conservatory. Then he completed his Bachelor’s degree in both performance and pedagogy at the PESMD Bordeaux Aquitaine and at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich (as an Erasmus student).
During this time, Bastien became fascinated by the repertoire of the 20th and 21st centuries, with which the accordion is especially connected. He also played a lot of free improvisation and pieces with electronics. In this context he took part in various concerts and festivals and collaborated with many composers.
The Master CoPeCo is a great opportunity to be active in the contemporary musical life. Through a collective of musical and multidisciplinary creations, Bastien hopes to develop different sounds possibilities and to explore new performing experiences. For him, working directly with composers and defending contemporary music is essential to understand our environment and the society in which we are living.
You can listen to some of Bastien’s recordings on his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVDTdZ39P-P5FYfhQNxF7_w
Francis St-Germain
Hamburg University of Music and Theatre, HfMT
Photo credit: Maryse St-Germain
Francis St-Germain is a composer, saxophonist and improviser from Montréal, Canada. He holds a Bachelor of Music in mixed composition (instrumental and electroacoustic) from Université de Montréal, under the direction of Pierre Michaud, where he also studied with Ana Sokolović.
Interested in long-lasting performances, he founded the company Les Concerts en Alcôve in 2016, producing in situ multidisciplinary events focused on sound, movement, chance and spatialization, with the aim of democratizing contemporary art. These include the Concert aux puces – which was created at the Arte Flea Market – and the Molécules concert series, held at the LOCAL 250 temporary art gallery, as well as at MaBrasserie Brewery Cooperative.
His projects have led him to collaborate with, among others, the Quatuor Cobalt, as well as with the theater companies Tête au corps (HISTOIRES ORDINAIRES, Limbes) and La reine ninja (Festival des Arts de Ruelle, Arène ninja).
Recently, his research focuses on the consideration of space and its impact on power relations between composer, performer and audience in the context of a musical creation and performance.
Carolina Santiago Martínez
Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, EAMT
Contemporary and Classical Music Pianist, Carolina Santiago (Yecla, Spain, 1994) combines her concert soloist career with chamber music at concert halls in all Europe such as the Kasteel d’Ursell (Brussels), L’Auditori de Barcelona, the Catalonian Parliament or the Marcel Hastir’s Atelier (Brussels).
She has won prizes such as Piano Córdoba, Ourense’s Piano Meeting, Liceu’s grant, BPA Yamaha’s scholarship and AIE scholarship. Nowadays she is studying a PhD in Artistic Research in Music at the University of Aveiro(Portugal) with Luca Chiantore, the European Master Degree on Contemporary Music CoPeCo (in Tallinn, Stockholm, Lyon and Hamburg each semester between 2020 and 2022) and she usually attends the Advanced Chamber Music Course at the Orpheus Instituut (Ghent) with Syntagma Piano Duo.
She studied Bachelor and Master Degrees at the Conservatori del Liceu(Barcelona) and she is the pianist of the Barcelona Modern Ensemble and coordinator of the International Composition Course Barcelona Modern, where she works with prestigious composers.
Carolina Santiago has received lessons from outstanding pianists like Albert Attenelle, Josep Colom, Pilar Valero, Nicolas Hodges, Vesko Stambolov, Catherine Ordronneau and others. Her passion for chamber music has led her to improve herself in that field specially with strings, piano duet and contemporary music ensembles. In 2019 she published her first CD edited by the AAMY. She has participated in festivals such as the Brussel’s Piano Spring 2017, Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt 2018, Stockholm Aurora Music Festival 2019and Royaumont Académie Voix Nouvelles 2020.
Hannah Wirnsperger
Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, EAMT
Though originally from Austria, Hannah was introduced to the flute at the elementary music school of Liechtenstein, where she spent most of her childhood.
In 2017 her bachelor studies in flute and improvisation led her to Lucerne (CH). In her three years at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts she was lucky to benefit from two faculties simultaneously – collaborating with and learning from the exceptional improvisation faculty and numerable guest professors (such as Joëlle Léandre or Fred Frith) while also deepening her instrumental understanding in her studies with Anne-Laure Pantillon, Charles Aeschlimann, Helen Bledsoe and Sébastian Jacot. Outside of her studies in Lucerne, Hannah is a scholarship holder of the Internationale Musikakademie Liechtenstein (Philippe Bernold).
Since she most cherishes her time spent working with composers and improvisers directly, Hannah is part of various ensembles performing contemporary as well as improvised music within and outside of Switzerland.