PERMANENT SEMINAR ON CREATION, PERFORMANCE AND ARTISTIC RESEARCH
27.03.2026 | 11 am | DeCA UA | CIME studio
Free entrance and in person.
Lecture
Is Composition Still Creation? Imitation and Transformation in Contemporary Music
Ruben Antonyan | Yerevani Komitasi Anvan Petakan Konservatoria
This seminar explores the relationship between originality, imitation, and transformation in contemporary compositional practice. Rather than presenting a definitive answer, the lecture invites reflection on how composers work with musical materials that often already exist within cultural and historical contexts. Through a series of examples drawn from different musical domains, the seminar examines how composers engage with established musical languages, structured compositional systems, recorded sound materials, and technological tools. Examples include the use of blues harmonic language, the twelve-tone technique, sampling practices in contemporary music production, and modular sound materials used in digital environments. The lecture also presents analytical and compositional examples illustrating how musical gestures and fragments from earlier works can be reinterpreted and transformed into new artistic contexts. By exploring these processes, the seminar encourages composition students to reconsider the notion of originality and to reflect on how creativity may emerge through reinterpretation, transformation, and dialogue with existing musical materials.
Ruben Antonyan | Born in 1988 in Yerevan. Studied composition with Prof. Aram Satian at Yerevan State Conservatory and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 2014. In the same year, he moved to Germany, where he began attending Colloquia and Seminars with Prof. Dr. Manfred Stahnke, as well as seminars with Prof. Dr. Georg Hajdu (Soundscape) and Sascha Lino Lemke (music theory and analysis) at the Academy of Music and Theater in Hamburg, Germany. In 2015, he attended the 3rd Summer Art Academy of the “Cultural Society,” where he presented his ‘Three Piano Pieces’ inspired by Robert Motherwell’s paintings. His music has been performed at several international festivals such as Music In Touch (Cagliari), Crossroads (Yerevan), Risuounanze (Udine), Opus 3 (Yerevan/Munchen), Loop (Brussels), etc. His last piece called ‘M’Spiration for viola solo was chosen to be performed during the concert Monteverdi and Contemporary music: project on the 450th anniversary of the birth of the Italian musician. The solo piece was performed by Maurizio Barbetti (viola), in Milan, Italy.