Evelyn Ficarra, Biography
A dual citizen (UK/USA), Evelyn Ficarra was born in California in but has spent most of her life in Britain. She studied composition with Jonathan Harvey and Peter Wiegold at the University of Sussex, receiving her MA in 1986, and also studied at the National Film and Television School, graduating in Screen Music in 1994. She then had several years teaching and freelancing as a composer, teacher and sound editor, before accepting a Fellowship/Teaching Assistantship from the University of California, Berkeley, where she is currently working towards a PhD.
Ficarra’s work has received support from, among others, the Arts Council of Great Britain, the Arts Council of England, the London Arts Board, the Sonic Arts Network, the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust, the Hinrichsen Foundation, Poems on the Underground and Meet the Composer. She has had composer residencies at the International Electronic Music Studio (EMS) in Stockholm and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. Her works have been short-listed for the Prix Noroit, Bourges and Luigi Russolo competitions. Her music has been heard in various formats (in concerts, theatres, music festivals, film festivals, on television and in radio broadcasts) in the UK, Europe, the Americas and the Far East. Her solo CD Frantic Mid-Atlantic was released by Sargasso in 1999. www.sargasso.com.
Ficarra is especially interested in cross-arts work and electro-acoustic media, and in addition to her concert works has written music for dance, theatre, film and radio. Notable collaborators include Jerwood Award winning choreographer Sarah Fahie (with naked fish productions, 2002-2006); and director Sue Buckmaster, with theatre-rites, on Shopworks (London International Festival of Theatre/Vienna Festival 2003) and In One Ear (Lyric Hammersmith and UK Tour, 2004/6); and Keynote+ (Kate Ryder and Jane Chapman) for whom she wrote Rendition with photographer and video artist Ian Winters, for prepared piano, harpsichord and video, premiered at the Cutting Edge Festival in 2006 and touring in 2007.
Recent work in the San Francisco Bay Area includes ‘Night Edge’, for singer, dancer, flute and prepared piano, featuring improvising musicians Aurora Josephson, paige starling sorvillo, Heather Frasch and Myra Melford, premiered on 17th December 2007 in Hertz Hall, University of California, Berkeley. Night Edge received further performances (revised with the addition of violin and cello) in April (featuring reknowned soprano Lucy Shelton from New York) and May of 2008.
Ficarra’s collaboration with Bay Area photographer and film maker Ian Winters has resulted recently in their project ‘short films about water / submarine revisited’ which was premiered in the MilkBar 2008 International Live Film Festival at the Noodle Factory 12 - 14 September, and will receive another performance during the ‘Journées de l’électroacoustique’ at the Auditorium Jean Cocteau in Noisiel near Paris, on 5th October 2008. An installation version of this project was also recently seen at the Open Cinema Festival in St Petersberg in August 2008.