Helena Tulve
Estonian composer. She studied composition at the Tallinn Secondary Music School (Alo Põldmäe) and from 1989 – 1992 at the Estonian Academy of Music (Erkki-Sven Tüür). In 1994 Tulve graduated with the Premier Prix from Jacques Charpentier's composition class at the Conservatoire Supérieur de Paris. Between 1993 and 1996 she furthered her knowledge of Gregorian chant. She has also attended György Ligeti's and Marco Stroppa's summer courses. Tulve belongs to the younger generation of Estonian composers who, in contrast to the neo-classicist tradition of rhythm-centeredness, create music which focuses on sound and sonority. Tulve's works give a fair idea of the richness and variety of her cultural experience: the French school of spectral music, IRCAM's experimentalism, Saariaho and Scelsi, echoes of Gregorian chant and Eastern musics. Helena Tulve's compositions have been performed in many European countries, in the USA and Canada, and at numerous festivals of contemporary music: NYYD Festival (Tallinn), BIG Torino (Turin), Music of Friends (Moscow), Les Boréales (Caen), MaerzMusik (Berlin), Klangspuren (Tyrol), Matrix Herbstfestival (Leipzig), Icebreaker (Seattle), the Warsaw Autumn, Vancouver New Music, Europamusicale and several others. For her compositions she was awarded the Heino Eller Composition Prize, Estonian Music Council Music Prize, the Estonian Cultural Prize, the President's Cultural Foundation's Young Artist Prize, Lepo Sumera Award and others. Since 2000 Tulve has taught composition at the Estonian Academy of Music in Tallinn and in 2011 she was appointed a professor, vice rector from 2012 to 2016. Her works are published by the Edition Peters publishing house. Tulve's recordings include three author's CDs – Sula (Estonian Radio, 2005), Lijnen (ECM, 2008) and Arboles lloran por lluvia (ECM, 2014).