IRCAM and the Orchestre national d'Île-de-France are delighted to announce the 3 finalists of the Élan Award 2025
The three finalists
Alessandro Baticci, 33 years old, Italy
Alessandro Baticci works at the interception of music and technology. As a composer, flautist and electroacoustic performer, Alessandro Baticci is active internationally in the field of contemporary music and sound art. He is also serial entrepreneur, inventor and product designer. He developed various electro-acoustical instruments, digital control and mapping systems, sound libraries, as well as sound and ergonomic solutions for acoustic instruments. Alessandro Baticci holds lectures and workshops in various universities across the world. He pursued studies in composition, flute, sound engineering as well as multimedia art in Milan, Vienna and Graz.
Alessandro is a Luzern Festival Academy Alumnus, fellow of Akademie Musiktheater heute by the Deutsche Bank Stiftung and Fellow of the Bogliasco Foundation (2022). His work has been rewarded with prestigious awards, such as the Staats-Stipendium of the Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport (2021), the Publicity Award of the SKE Cultural Sponsorship (2022), the Theodor Körner Prize (2022) and the ERSTE Bank Composition Award (2023).
Alessandro Baticci is founding member of The Black Page Orchestra, as well as co-founder of the composer-performer duo Nimikry. His recent compositions include commissions for Lucerne Festival, Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien, Staatsoper Stuttgart and Ensemble Phace.
Shin Kim, 30 years old, South Korea
South Korean composer Shin Kim won various competitions, including Concours de Genève and George Enescu International Competition among many others. His works have been performed in various music festivals including Gaudeamus Muziekweek and Wien Modern by renowned musical groups such as the Korean National Symphony Orchestra, National Radio Orchestra of Romania, and Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart.
He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at the Korea National University of Arts and is pursuing a doctorate (MPhil/PhD) at the Royal Academy of Music in London where he recently finished his Master of Music degree. He is a member of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) South Korean Section and the Contemporary Music Society in Seoul, and the Executive Composer of Ensemble SONOR XXI.
Hristina Susak, 28 years old, Serbia
Hristina Susak began composing at eight. At seventeen, she pursued composition and music theory studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, graduating in 2019 and 2022, then completing postgraduate studies with Prof. Mark Andre in Dresden. In 2021, she was awarded the City of Vienna Prize for music. Since October 2023, she has been teaching Music Theory at the Berlin University of the Arts.
Her works have been performed globally by renowned ensembles and orchestras, including Ensemble Intercontemporain at Philharmonie de Paris and Paris Fashion Week, Quatuor Béla at La Biennale di Venezia, MDR and NDR Symphony Orchestras, Arditti Quartet at Wien Modern, Tonkünstler Orchestra, and Orquesta de Valencia. Other venues include Kioi Hall Tokyo, Konzerthaus Vienna, Semperoper Dresden, and festivals like ECLAT Stuttgart and Takefu 2023. She has also performed her music at the Viennese National Theatre.
Since 2015, Hristina Susak has worked as a conceptual performance artist and was selected by Marina Abramovic for her 2019 masterclass in Belgrade. She is also a music theorist and researcher, presenting her analytical work at conferences including Sorbonne University Paris, Moscow State Conservatory, Austrian Society for Music, Aristotle University Thessaloniki, and the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.
Élan Award 2025
A major jump-start for the careers of young composers, the Élan Prize is designed to promote their careers and provide them with professional support over several years.
The three young composers selected to compete for the Élan Prize will benefit from an exceptional coaching program combining the know-how of the two organizations in orchestral and electronic writing. They will be guided in their compositional work by both the Orchestra's musicians and IRCAM's teams, as well as by composer and guest judge Lucia Ronchetti, composer Matteo Franceschini, and conductor Yalda Zamani.
As part of the ManiFeste Festival Academy, the finalists will attend a workshop on composition for orchestra and will participate in rehearsals of the works they have written for the competition. These will be performed by the Orchestre national d’Île-de-France, under the baton of Yalda Zamani. At the end of this public concert, the Élan Prize, endowed by the Orchestre national d’Île-de-France and the Maison de la Musique Contemporaine, will be awarded. The winner will have his or her score published by Éditions Durand-Salabert-Eschig / Universal Music.
The winner will also receive a commission from IRCAM and the Orchestre national d'Île-de-France to write a new work for solo instrument, orchestra, and electronics to be premiered at the ManiFeste-2026. In his or her training in electronics, he or she will benefit from the teaching and advice of IRCAM's computer music designers.
The creations of the Élan Prize winner will be performed during the Orchestra's seasons, on tour in Île-de-France and in the region, thereby ensuring a wide distribution.
In IRCAM studios: Cursus Presentations / Arnau Brichs, Dionysios Papanikolaou, Luca Mariani (photos Mikhail Malt, Deborah Lopatin)
Calendar Élan Award 2025
January-April 2025
Masterclasses led by the 2025 mentor composer Lucia Ronchetti, the conductor Yalda Zamani, the musicians from the Orchestra.
June 2025
Composition workshop as part of the ManiFeste-2025 Academy, rehearsals of the finalists' works.
June 17, 2025
Final of the Competition during a public concert conducted by Yalda Zamani, Premiere of the piece commissioned from the 2024 laureate Arnau Brichs and presentation of the Award in CENTQUATRE-PARIS, salle 400.
Seasons 2025-2026 and beyond
The works by the laureate are performed on tour in France.
L’Orchestre national d’Île-de-France in Centre Pompidou Paris, ÉLAN Award 2023 (photo Hervé Véronèse)