Team

Coming from a family of musicians, Oskar Gigele already showed a remarkable talent for complex melodies at a young age. As a soloist with the Vienna Boys’ Choir, he has already sung on the world’s great stages, for example as the second boy in The Magic Flute at the 2006 Salzburg Festival. After graduating from Vienna’s Neustiftgasse Music High School, he began his academic career at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (mdw) in Iris ter Schiphorst’s composition class in 2014. Since October 2022 he has been studying media composition with a focus on film music with Judit Varga.

He expanded his expertise by participating in the Film Scoring Masterclass with Alan Menken at Hollywood in Vienna in September 2022, as well as the Composition Masterclass with Kalevi Aho in March 2023. In May 2022 he taught his own composition masterclass focusing on the piano and its compositional possibilities at Piano Day Skopje, North Macedonia.

Gigele has won numerous prizes, including the Ensemble Ultreia Call for Scores (2019) and his placement as a semi-finalist in the Synchron Stage Vienna composer competition (2023). Of particular note is his victory in the Volksoper Vienna miniature operetta competition (2023), which earned him the commission to compose a miniature operetta that premiered at the Volksoper in June 2024.

In addition to his compositional achievements, Gigele is also known for his collaborations with renowned artists, including the composition of the intro music for Joesi Prokopetz’s cabaret program Vorletzte Worte (2014).

As a board and founding member of the Independent Music Association, Oskar Gigele was interviewed by Daniela Fietzek for OE1 (Österreichischer Rundfunk), where two of his pieces were broadcast. His ongoing collaboration with the Alma Mahler Philharmonic Orchestra, for which he has written several orchestral works, is further testimony to his artistic commitment and professionalism. His contribution as sound logo composer for the KlangBildKlang Festival 2024 is also worth mentioning.

In the summer of 2023, Oskar Gigele also expanded his repertoire by producing several tracks for the television format Genussland Österreich (2023) on ORF 3, which were used in various episodes of the series.

Since January 2025, Gigele has also been producing music for video games, including as a member of Ink and Quill Studio

Marko Markuš (*1990 in Karlovac, Croatia) is a Vienna-based Croatian composer, arranger and university lecturer.

He completed diploma studies in Composition (with Michael Obst and Michael Jarrell) as well as Media Composition (with Reinhard Karger) at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (mdw) and was awarded its Honorary Prize. Since 2017, he has been a lecturer at the Department of Composition Studies and Music Production at the same university, teaching Historical Orchestration and, from the 2024/25 academic year, also Harmony and Counterpoint.

He has received several grants and awards for his compositions, which have been performed, among others, at Wien Modern, the Grafenegg Festival, the Zagreb Biennale, and Glazbena Tribina. To date, he has collaborated with a number of distinguished artists and ensembles, including Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich, Ensemble Quasars, Ensemble Platypus, Ensemble Zeitfluss, Cantus ansambl, Nouvelle Cuisine Big Band, Max Steiner Orchestra, I.N.K. Experiment Duo, Oxymoron Duet, and more. He plays an active role in bringing to life concerts featuring world premieres, particularly works by younger Viennese composers. In addition to his academic teaching, he has been successfully mentoring many applicants preparing for entrance examinations at music universities for many years. He is a full member of both the Austrian and Croatian Composers’ Associations.

Virginio Zoccatelli is an Italian composer, conductor, storyteller and speaker.

Thanks to his multifaceted cultural and musical background, he is known for havingdeveloped his style being a composer who aims to know the world and the deep human interiority through various artistic languages. He graduated in Piano, Instrumentation for Band and Composition, earning also a Bachelor degree in Literature and Philosophy at the University DAMS of Bologna with a thesis on G. Petrassi. He was included in the “Enciclopedia italiana dei Compositori Contemporanei” (1999) at the age of 30. His catalog currently features more than 600 works, including scores for orchestra, wind orchestra, choir, solo singers, chamber works, soloist, scores for theater and soundtracks that have won several national and international composition prizes. Among them, “La Maschera” (1992-2013), “Il violino magico” (2009), “Ecomusical” (2008, Premio Abbiati per la Scuola), “Le storie di Woodland” (2010), “Empedocle” (2015) and “Vivantigone” (2016, Premio Abbiati per la Scuola), Foibe (2020), are worth of mention. Moreover he composed “Giulietta e Romeo… l’amore continua” (2012-2013) and “Indaco” (2014-15), on stage since 2012 in several Italian theaters, a production by RBRDanceCompany. He is the founder of the Ensemble Accademia Secolo XXI (2001), which he also conducted in public concerts and for which he played the piano in manyalbum productions. In 2016 he published the monographic CD “Mediterraneo” produced by MEP (Roma); in 2019 Almendra Music published the Cd “An Italian embroiderer”. He has alsopublished many scores and tracks for RAI – the Italian national television and broadcasting company – that have been frequently broadcasted, among them are: the CDs “Open dialogues” (2010), “Orchestral movements” (2011), “Jeux et Paysages” (2012), “Landscapes” (2013) and “Dai Balcani al Mediterraneo” (2016). Furthermore, he has collaborated in severalproductions with many renowned international artists, among them are the actors G. Lazzarini, P. Pitagora, U. Pagliai, and the movie directors P. Valerio, A. Giarola, F. Viviani, and T. Turolo for film’s soundtracks “Diec”. His works have been featured in relevant festivals and musical institutions and some of the most important performers of his music include musicians such as V. Parisi, C. Ambrosini, A. Canonici, A. Mannucci, M. Somadossi, W. Themel, M. Attura, A. Ferrante, Ex Novo ensemble, Accademia Secolo XXI, MAV Budapest Orchestra, Ned Ensemble, Orchestra giovanile del Teatro Politeama di Palermo, Orchestra del Conservatorio di Trapani, Ensemble del laboratorio di Musica Contemporanea del Conservatorio di Udine, Ensemble Time Machine, Ensemble Musica Attuale, Solisti Veneti, Ensemble del Conservatorio di Palermo, G. Vianello, A. Carcano, E. Calcagni, F. Scomparin, G. Brunelli, L. Trabucco, S. Ballarin, M. Marcassa, C. Sebastianutto, L. Degani, T. Milenkovic, Wakana Kimura, and Ruslan Talas, C. Saccon e M. Genot.. Since June 2017 from October 2020 he was the Rector of the Conservatorio “J. Tomadini” in Udine, where he is former professor of ‘Elementi di Composizione per Didattica’. Virginio Zoccatelli at present teaches Composition, Harmony and Counterpoint at the Conservatory in Trieste. Since February 2024, he has heldthe position of national secretary of SIMC (Italian Society of Contemporary Music).

Marcello Palazzo is a composer, conductor, performer, and teacher, praised by Julian Anderson as “one of the brightest young talents on the musical scene.” He is currently writing an orchestral piece for the London Symphony Orchestra as part of the Helen Hamlyn Panufnik Composers’ Scheme and a new setting of I Sing of a Maiden for Merton College Choir, Oxford.

Marcello has written a wide range of music for soloists, string quartets, wind quintets, sinfonietta ensemble and an opera. He has written for Sir Thomas Allen, the Castalian String Quartet, Lumas Winds and the Britten Pears Contemporary Ensemble, amongst others. His music has been performed at the International Glasshouse Centre, the Britten Studio in Snape Maltings, the Holywell Music Room, Sheldonian Theatre, the Tête-à-Tête Opera Festival, and the Aldeburgh Festival.
Having completed his MPhil in Composition at New College, Oxford, and graduating with Distinction, Marcello has been offered a scholarship to study for a PhD at the Royal Academy of Music.

Diego Marcelo Collatti is a composer and pianist, born in 1976 in Argentina. He studied composition at the National University of Rosario, in Buenos Aires, and at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna under Detlev Müller-Siemens. He also studied electroacoustic music with Bruno Liberda, earning his Magister Artium degree in 2009.

He has received numerous commissions for prestigious festivals and ensembles, including the Vienna Festival, Settembre Musica, Grafenegg Festival, Asia Pacific Accordion Festival in Taipei, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Wiener Collage, and Ensemble Reconsil. Diego has extensive experience in piano pedagogy.

He has taught at the Realgymnasium in Vienna and regularly conducts private composition workshops for children and youth, including at Mondo Musica in Cremona and the Berlin State Music Academy. His works and arrangements have been recorded on CD and broadcast, with premieres at Jeunesse Musicale, the Vienna Konzerthaus (Mozartsaal), ORF Radiokulturhaus, and Musikverein (Steinener Saal). He has an active concert career both domestically and internationally, performing in various formations.

To date, Diego has published 25 works with Universal Edition, ranging from duets and trios to ensemble and large orchestra pieces.

David John Roche’s music is direct, determined, and loud. Strongly influenced by heavy metal, lush orchestral music, and his working-class Welsh background, David’s work has been praised for its “passages of intense expressive power” (Thomas Adès), described as “exquisite” (Adam Walton, BBC Introducing), and marked out as “bold, exciting, and beautiful” (Sir James Dyson)

In tandem with a consistent string of international performances and commissions, his compositions have been broadcast, televised, and written about internationally to millions of people (Rai5, Tellebelluno, S4C, NHK, BBC Radio 3, BBC Introducing, London Evening Standard, and many others). He is currently completing commissions for the Tanglewood Music Centre, Tokyo Opera City Cultural Foundation, and the Vale of Glamorgan Festival (Tredegar Town Band). He is also undertaking research and production work with Meta Arts and Wales Arts Review.

David has completed commissions for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Jan Willem Nelleke and Jose Zalba Smith, Siwan Rhys, Astrid the Dutch Street Organ, Orion Orchestra and Dyson, Brian Ellis, Cambridge University Communications Department, Centre of Cell, Royal Observatory Greenwich, National Library of Wales, British Library, Psappha, Hear and Now in conjunction with Psappha, Psappha, Ty Cerdd and Hijinx Theatre, NAFTA Ensemble, and many others. He has long, collaborative, developed relationships with festivals and ensembles.

Born in Israel, Ronen Nissan is a versatile conductor and arranger whose repertoire rangers from symphonic and sacred music, to works by composers persecuted by the Nazis, to cross over, film music and tango projects. Mr. Nissan served for 15 years as the Music Director of the “St Stephan” Choir and Chamber Orchestra (Tulln, Austria), where he regularly led performances of sacred music. He was also assistant conductor with various Viennese opera groups. Since December of 2022 he serves as music director of concerts at the Mozarthaus in Vienna.

In May of 2022 he conducted in Vienna a double bill performance of “ Mozart and Salieri” (Rimsky Korsakov) and “Zanetto” (Mascagni). In recent years Mr. Nissan has been cooperating with Israeli composer Baruch Berliner, both as arranger as well as conductor, leading performances of his works with orchestras in Lviv, Ukraine, St Petersburg, Russia and Vienna.

A further artistic cooperation – as conductor, arranger and guitarist – is with the Bente Kahan Foundation (Wroclaw, Poland), presenting “Unfinished Lives” – art-, folk- and Cabaret music from the Theresienstadt ghetto. most recently in Warsaw, and in Prague. Further performances are planned for Tel Aviv and Oslo.

In 2019 he led the Hallein chamber orchestra (Austria). In 2017/ 8 he conducted the Berliner Symphoniker and in 2012/3 the German radio orchestra, both on concert tours in China. During 2014-5 Mr. Nissan led the soloists, choirs, ballets, and orchestras of the Stara Zagora and the Veliko Tarnovo Operas (Bulgaria) in a series of Strauss Gala and Classic Hollywood film concerts. In 2014 Mr. Nissan conducted a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic (Czech Republic), after which he was awarded a Medal by the Bishop of Lower Austria for his contribution to sacred music. The same year he also had his debut with the Opole Philharmonic Orchestra (Poland).His project, “The Well Seasoned Clarinet”, written and arranged for clarinetist Andy Miles, had its premiere with the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra (Germany) in 2013.

Toby Purser’s combination of passion and intellect, structure and freedom, poetry and drama have earned him attention and praise from opera critics including The Times (“such musical energy”), The Telegraph (“galvanising”), and WhatsOnStage (“scintillating precision”).

Newly appointed as Head of Conducting at London’s Royal College of Music, Toby Purser’s conducting is recognised for its combination of passion and intellect, poetry and drama. In 2019, his operatic collaborations were nominated for an Olivier Award (Best New Opera Production – Britten The Turn of the Screw with ENO/Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre) and an International Opera Award (Best Rediscovered Work – Stanford The Travelling Companion with New Sussex Opera). Recognised as a world leader in the conducting community, at the beginning he the Covid pandemic he launched Conductors in Isolation, an online forum which now has over 1600 members worldwide.

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Insights on what it means to be a published composer with all its benefits and responsibilities as well as how to look ahead as young composers and prepare to take the step to apply for consideration by a publisher.

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