BEAST and Centrala present: Piyawat Louilarpprasert and Pongtorn Techaboonakho

Innovative Thai composers Piyawat Louilarpprasert and Pongtorn Techaboonakho join Birmingham artists Simon Smith, and Scott Wilson in this event involving performances using field recordings, live coding, the Kyma sound system, and collective improvisation.

Address:

Unit 4 Minerva Works
158 Fazeley Street
Birmingham
B5 5RT

Advance Tickets Available from Centrala

Piyawat Louilarpprasert

CNN News Worlds Report, Karla Cripps
“Young and Gifted, Meet the rebel Thai composer taking music to unheard heights”
Piyawat Louilarpprasert is a composer who works with the interweave of music composition, visual art and technology. Piyawat has been awarded grants, commissions and prizes such as ASCAP Morton Gould Award 2018, 2020 and 2021 (USA), Matan Givol Prize (Israel), Sergei Slonimsky Award (Russia), KulturKontakt Artist in residence (Vienna), Charles Stewart Richardson Award (UK), British Council Cultural Grant (UK), American Composer Orchestra Earshot (USA), Pro Helvetia Grant (Switzerland), Japan Foundation Grants (Japan) and many more. His works were performed in festivals: Darmstadt New Music Festival, Lucerne Festival, Time of Music (Finland), Gaudeamus Musikweek, Saint Petersburg New Music Festival, and
more. He also worked with renowned performers including Arditti, Berlin Philharmonic Horn Section, ICE, Yarn Wire, Wet Ink, Lucerne Alumni, Switch Ensemble, Tacet(i), Orkest Ereprijs,
Thailand Philharmonic, American Composer Orchestra and more.
Recently, he is commissioned by the Donaueschingen Musiktage for 100th years celebration with Omnibus Ensemble. In 2021-22, he is awarded the Don Michael Randel Research Fellowship to conduct his new music course: P.I.Y. (Perform it Yourself) at Cornell University, Ithaca where he is now obtaining his Doctoral Degree. His major teachers are Valeriy Rizayev, Dai Fujikura, Gilbert Nuono, Kevin Ernste, Marianthi Papalexandri Alexandri. He has obtained his Bachelor’s degree at College of Music, Mahidol University, Thailand in
2011-15, Master’s degree in composition and conducting at Royal College of Music, London.
Piyawat was music director of Thailand New Music and Art Symposium (TNMAS) 2019-20 which focused on the diversity of art, music, society and culture. Currently, he is serving as a
chair for Thailand Music and Art Organisation (TMAO) and a TNMAS program curator 2021.

Pongtorn Techaboonakho

Bangkok-born, Pongtorn Techaboonakho (b.1996) is a young generation Thai composer and audio engineer. He studied guitar with Chairat Pornamnuay and entered the Pre-College Program at College of Music, Mahidol University in 2012 majoring in classical guitar. In 2018, he obtained a Bachelor’s of Music at Princess Galyani Vadhana Institute of Music (PGVIM) with a full scholarship where he studied classical guitar with Padet Netpakdee, and music composition with Dr.Anothai Nitibhon and Dr.Jiradej Setabundhu. Currently, he is pursuing his Master’s Degree in mixed composition at the University of Birmingham (England) under the supervision of Dr. Scott Wilson. He is also studying with a Thai composer, Piyawat Louilarpprasert.

Simon Smith

Simon Smith is currently a studio technician at The University of Birmingham. In addition he is a composer, sound artist, live electronics performer and a DJ of outsider novelty music.

Scott Wilson

For the past three decades Scott Wilson’s music and sound art has explored the intersection of a variety of different and sometimes contradictory practices. Combining aspects of instrumental/vocal composition, field recording, immersive multichannel electroacoustic sound and visuals, cross-cultural collaboration, live coding and improvisation in works that are each a bespoke solution to a unique artistic problem, his output holds few firm allegiances to schools, styles or genres, and regularly transgresses the boundaries of the ‘acceptable’ to be found in even the most supposedly experimental fields of practice. A particular interest in collaboration has led to a rich range of output, including cross-cultural and interdisciplinary works. These and other pieces including hyperreal soundscapes using sound from the natural world, a collaborative musical palimpsest on classic Qawwali recordings, and music created by sonifying the particle collisions of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider have been presented around the world. Also active as an educator and mentor for young artists, he is the co-director of Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre and teaches at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. https://scottwilson.ca