Marios Joannou Elia

He worked with artists like Bogusław Schaeffer and Michael Finnissy, as well as Georges Aperghis, Helmut Lachenmann and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

[citation needed] For the 125th birthday of the automobile, Elia composed the open-air multimedia symphony "autosymphonic", commissioned by the city of Mannheim.

[citation needed] The work of Elia comprises compositions of different genres and instrumentations for the opera as well as for concert halls and goes up to visionary projects and concepts for complex and large-scale cultural events.

[citation needed] Elia composed the fourth part of "autosymphonic" for symphony orchestra, choir, percussion quintet and the singers and rappers of the German pop band Söhne Mannheims and Xavier Naidoo.

[citation needed] During the composition of "Strophes" (2003), in which the architectonic features of a high-tech factory influenced various parameters of the work such as the production of sounds, Marios Joannou Elia developed the concept of polymediality.

The compositional style of the works on this recording varies in terms of their musical substance and behaviour, expressing the composer's distinctive musical values: his breadth of vision, technical craft, rhythmic drive, movement and gesture, and his profound expressivity and meta-theatricality, which have a spirit of restlessness and unexpectedness – often achieved through compositional techniques invented by Elia himself.

[20] The Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture in Vienna honoured him with a special Grant Award as the best student at Mozarteum during the academic year 2001/02.

[citation needed] The premiere of "With a Pair of Scissors and Thousand Threads" by the Cambridge University New Music Society (2002) was among the first international successes he achieved.

[citation needed] Another early success was the performance of "Antidoron" (Holy Bread) for electronically amplified string quartet: First Prize at the Lutosławski Award international composition competition in Warsaw (2004).

[citation needed] In 2010 he was voted "Artist of the Year" in Cyprus and elected President of the "New Works" Music Festival in Southampton.