Stéphane Ginsburgh

Biography

Ginsburgh was born in Brussels. After graduating from the Royal Music Conservatories of Mons and Liège in piano and chamber music, Ginsburgh studied with Paul Badura-Skoda, Vitaly Margulis and particularly Claude Helffer in Paris for contemporary music and Jerome Lowenthal in New York.

He appears regularly in recitals and chamber music in Europe, the Middle East, Russia and the USA. He performs Contemporary music as well as the Classical and Romantic repertoires that he often associates in his programs. He collaborates regularly with the Ictus Ensemble. He performed and premiered pieces by Newton Armstrong, Vykintas Baltakas, Guy Barash, Philippe Boesmans, Renaud De Putter, Jean-Luc Fafchamps, Fabian Fiorini, Panayiotis Kokoras, Pierre Kolp, György Kurtág, Philipp Maintz, Benoît Mernier, Stefan Prins, André Ristic, Frederic Rzewski, François Sarhan, Sabrina Schroeder, Matthew Shlomowitz and Juan Carlos Tolosa.

Ginsburgh has been awarded the Belgian composers' union for his implication in performing Belgian contemporary music. He regularly plays with the Ictus Ensemble under George-Elie Octors. From 1990 on, member of the Bureau des Pianistes and since 1991, he participates actively to the Contemporary Music Spring Festival Ars Musica in Brussels. In 1998, Ginsburgh co-founded Le Bureau des Arts now Sonar, an active group of artists dedicated to different types of artistic expression and creation including music, dance and literature. He was artistic director of the Centre Henri Pousseur dedicated to electronic music and live electronics from 2010 until 2013.

Festivals

He performed at important festivals such as Agora at IRCAM (Paris), Ars Musica (Brussels), Festival de Wallonie, Festival van Vlaanderen, Tzlil Meudcan Festival (Tel-Aviv), Festival Transit (Leuven), Milano Musica, Festival Next Wave (New York), Festival de Marseille, Festival Courtisane (Gent), Artefact Festival (Leuven), Festival Midis-Minimes (Brussels), Festival Loop (Brussels), Biennale Charleroi-Danse, Gentsche Feesten, Moscow Autumn Contemporary Music Festival, Les Nuits Botanique (Brussels), Quincena Musical (San Sebastián), Imatronic/Piano+ ZKM, Darmstädter Ferienkurse.

Prizes

Discography

Among many CD releases, Marcel Duchamp's Erratum Musical and Morton Feldman Last Pieces received praising reviews by New York critics. He recorded three CDs with music by Jean-Luc Fafchamps and Morton Feldman. His latest CD for Sub Rosa features For Bunita Marcus by Morton Feldman. Upcoming projects include a five CDs box for Sub Rosa with Feldman's complete piano music.

Selected recordings

Other activities

Ginsburgh teaches piano, philosophy and sociology at the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze and has taught for several years chamber music at the Royal Conservatory of Liège and the music school of Mons. He is assistant for the piano at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels since 2012.

He studied philosophy at the Université libre de Bruxelles and also wrote several articles about politics, and the interpretation of contemporary music.

He translated Eric Hobsbawm's Uncommon People: Resistance, Rebellion and Jazz into French for Aden Editions.