17th Kompolize Summer 2020

Portrait Pradalie The winner of the 17th Kompolize International Composition Competition Summer 2020 was Samuel Pradalie. His work Moving Shapes (2019) received its world premiere with the Lietzeorchester on 10 September 2022 at the Auenkirche in Berlin-Wilmersdorf and on 17 September 2022 at the Concert Hall of the Berlin University of the Arts (Hardenbergstraße).

Samuel Pradalie is a UK based composer who recently completed his MPhil in composition at the University of Cambridge under the tutelage of Richard Causton and was supported by a generous bursary from the prestigious Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust. Samuel Pradalie’s music has recently become pre-occupied with miniature forms, looking to compose small, mercurial, and often witty pieces that look to vividly express images, whilst also create a sense of allusiveness.

Samuel Pradalie’s most recent composition Erik Satie Memoirs of an Amnesiac, a music theatre piece based on the writings of Erik Satie demonstrates this aesthetic shift. The short movements look to capture the unique eccentricity of Erik Satie through an obsessiveness in the music, and unusual orchestration such as Accordion and re-used material as percussion (bottles, paint cans and barrel).

Samuel Pradalie has been commissioned by a number of ensembles including the Bristol Ensemble, CoMA London, and the Cambridge University Music Society. Moreover, he has been the recipient of several prizes including the John Halford Prize for his piano piece, Three Depictions of Breakfast.

Samuel Pradalie has been passionate about organising concerts to showcase his music and has helped set up a number of New Music Organisations including The Porcine Moth Crushed Ear Society which look bring new more intimate unusual venues around London.

Samuel Pradalie, Program Note for Moving Shapes:

Moving Shapes is a composition for orchestra which looks to create a dynamic and intense musical environment from juxtaposing rigid thematic objects. The composition is based around a limited series of materials, such as the opening monolithic chord, rapid run of notes, and sforzando chord which are continually re-ordered, inverted, and extended to create new materials. Moving Shapes looks to create a frenetic intensity through layering materials which move at different temporal rates and creating dense textures from layering a number of contrasting sonorities. Structurally the composition is accumulative generating thematic material throughout and building to a manic climax at the end of the piece in which all the accumulated material is juxtaposed to dramatic effect.