Team

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.

Universal Edition representative

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.

AKM representative

Insights on what it means for a composer to have a collective agency administer performing, broadcasting and provision rights as well as reproduction and distribution rights (mechanical rights).