Leon MILO, composer, creates music in which instruments , electronics, natural sounds and synthesis are unified. The music is projected into multi-channeled spaces with the instruments often being treated in real time and in parallel with other electronic parts.
His works have been presented the world over and include instrumental and electroacoustic music for the concert hall, dance, film, television, radio, public sound installations and museums (The Pompidou Center, Gallo Roman Museum in Saint-Romain-en-Gal, Lyon, Paris Bourget Airport, Lux emborg Gardens, ...). Commisions and premiers have included the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Piano Spheres, Borealis Festival, Bergen, The Ventura Symphony Orchestra, New music
Los Angeles, Pianist Susanne Kessel, Cellist Vincent Segal (Paris), Violinisst Sigyn Fossness (Norway), IRCAM (Paris), Radio France, Foro Internacional De Música Nueva(Mexico), 38éme Rugissants (Grenoble), The Crash ensemble (Dublin), Le Trio D’Argent (Paris).
Receiving his Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School, he worked as percussionist and timpanist in orchestras such as The Los Angeles and Oslo Philharmonic, Jerusalem Symphony, as well as with numerous ensembles such as XTET (which he co-founded in 1988, the California EAR Unit and New York New Music, to name a few.
Major studies in composition were with Professor Leonard Stein (former director of the USC Schoen berg Institute in Los Angeles), William Kraft and with Luciano Berio and Jacob Druckman. Invited in1987 to the Sundance Institute in Utah by Robert Redford and David Newman to develop film music projects he now composes regularly for European television and Cinema. “La Derniére Minute”,
a short fiction film for Canal+ for which he did wrote music and sound design was chosen in the catagory of Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival, 2004 and won best soundtrack for European short fiction. He composed the score for the feature documentary “ On Dirai Que...” which will
be released in December 2007 in France.
In 1990, he receivied a Fulbright Fellowship for composition study in Paris. Working with Gilbert Amy and then attending Les Ateliers UPIC studying electronic music with Curtis Roads, he began incorperating new technologies into his works. Soon after, he was selected to take part in the pres tigious one year course in composition and computer music at IRCAM, Paris where he wrote and premiered“Sa!” for Violin solo and Electronics.
Recently, there have been premieres of new works for piano and electronics for Susanne Kessel at the Beethoven house in Bonn, for cello, dancer and real-time electronics, “L’Amour en Cage” performed the Carré Magique in Lannion, France, A work for the Festival Ile de France for the Brazillian Percussion Trio “Sete Portas”, numerous concerts in Asia, Europe and Latin America of the work “Mexico” for flute trio and electronics, music and sound design for a real time performance for dance, instruments and video which is currently on tour in France, Mexico and Brazil.
Leon Milo and Susanne Kessel have recently founded the Duo “Pianowaves” which gave three premier performances of works for Piano, electronics and percussion at the 2007 Beethoven Festival in Bonn.