She is in the middle of writing. Composer Sofia Avramidou is finalizing the score of her new work, Geranomachie, which will be premiered by the Ensemble Intercontemporain during the Grand Soir Numériqueat the Philharmonie de Paris in December. An enigmatic title, which evokes an ancient and mysterious myth, at the frontier of animality and humanity.

Her first musical memory is a traditional Sephardic song... Sofia Avramidou, born in Greece in 1988, began by studying traditional music. 

Greece, Italy: a Mediterranean apprenticeship
She learned to play instruments such as the oud and the ney, a reed flute dating back to ancient Egypt, improvising while singing the music of the Eastern Mediterranean. At the age of 18, she studied musicology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and joined the composition department. After a master's degree, she continued at the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome, inIvan Fedele's class. Then she headed for France! The Boulogne-Billancourt Conservatory before joining the composition and computer science course atIrcamin 2017.

Metallages, for flute, clarinet, horn, percussion, piano and string quartet, premiered at the Royaumont Festival, Val d'Oise in 2020.

The literary soul, the vivid imagination
The musician has taken a liking to the old myth of the Geranomachy. In Greek: the battle of the migratory birds. A tale as old as time itself, which refers to the bloody battles between migratory birds and a nation of dwarfs. There are countless versions of it, all over the world: in the Antiquities - Homer, Herodotus - in Latin funerary art, in various Amerindian myths - among the Cherokee, the Salish and the Apache -, as well as in several tales by Chinese Taoist monks... The composer liked its poetry, as well as its striking topicality: the Geranomachy speaks of migration issues.

Immobility and momentum
Sofia Avramidou has a very intuitive approach.
The poetic idea of Geranomachy lies in the dichotomy between two philosophical concepts: migratory culture vs. stable culture, heaven vs. earth, animality vs. humanity, and the violence that this encounter engenders. Birds symbolise animality, but they also embody movement, adaptation, community and a strong sense of protection and solidarity. Humans, on the other hand, are withdrawn, immobile, violent and aggressive. With 24 instruments and electronics at her disposal, she plays with the different sound bodies, chiselling contrasts.

Fascinated by fairy tales
Literature is a major source of inspiration for the young composer. For the Venice Biennale in 2017, she composed The Legend of Saint Martin, a piece for solo cello directly inspired by "I am lost", a theatrical monologue by Jean Cocteau. Sofia is also fascinated by the tales of the Grimm brothers. Her chamber opera, 'Rodi rodi, morsicchia! La casina chi rosichia? "composed in 2018, is marked by the story of Hansel and Gretel, while the piece she composed during her studies at Ircam, "Keep digging the hare hole", is inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

Mark your calendars! Geranomachie will be presented on December 3rd 2021, at the Philharmonie!

Suzanne Gervais