Dr. Elainie Lillios, an associate professor of composition at Bowling Green State University’s College of Musical Arts, has been awarded a commission from the prestigious Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM) in Paris.
A historical research group founded in 1948 by electroacoustic music pioneer Pierre Schaeffer, the commission invites Lillios to compose a new work in the GRM’s electroacoustic studios, which creative environment and technical facilities have hosted an array famous composers, including Pierre Boulez, Olivier Messiaen, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Darius Milhaud and Edgard Varèse, among others. The group awards 25 to 30 commissions each year to composers from around the world.
Lillios is only the second American composer in the history of the GRM to be awarded a commission. The American composer and inventor, John Chowning known for discovering the FM synthesis algorithm in 1967, which led to the creation of the digital synthesizer, was the first. Lillios’s new work will be premiered in October 2013 as a featured piece on the GRM’s “Multiphonies” concert series. The performance will take place in Paris at La maison de Radio France in the Salle Olivier Messiaen, with the composer performing the worked on the GRM’s famous “Acousmonium,” an orchestra of 80-plus loudspeakers arranged throughout the concert space.
About the commission Lillios states, “I’m thrilled to receive a commission from the GRM and look forward to creating a new piece in its inspiring studios. The GRM resides at the forefront of electroacoustic music, boasting an amazing historical lineage of research, composition, and development in electroacoustic music and performance. It’s an honor to be among those awarded commissions by this preeminent institution.”