Ramon Lazkano

Ramon Lazkano (born 26 June 1968) is a contemporary French and Spanish Basque composer of classical music.

Born in San Sebastián, Basque Country, Spain, in 1968, Lazkano attended piano and composition classes at the San Sebastián Higher Conservatory of Music, where he obtained a Higher Degree in Composition.

Holding a Gipuzkoako Foru Diputazioa scholarship, he was accepted at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique of Paris, where he studied composition and orchestration with Alain Bancquart and Gérard Grisey, and was awarded a First Prize of Composition in 1990.

A Sasakawa Foundation Scholarship allowed him to follow the studies of composition and analysis in Montreal with Gilles Tremblay.

At his return to Paris, he studied orchestra conducting with Jean-Sébastien Béreau and Arturo Tamayo, and received a DEA degree in 20th Century Music and Musicology from the'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales.

His piano concerto Hitzaurre Bi earned him, at the age of 26, the prestigious Prince Pierre de Monaco Foundation Prize.

Shortly afterwards, in 1997, a jury chaired by Luciano Berio gave him the Leonard Bernstein-Jerusalem Composition Prize for his Auhen Kantuak.

Stanford University invited him in 1999 to introduce his music and that same year he was appointed, along with Luis de Pablo, resident at the Musica Festival and the Strasburg Conservatoire.

His residence in Rome (first as a scholar of the, then of the Villa Medici French Academy in Rome) allowed him to carry out a reflection on what composition is and what it means today, focusing mainly on thoughts about intertextuality and the saturation, silence and experience of sound and time, all of which giving birth to emblematic pieces such as Ilunkor (commissioned by the Euskadiko Orkestra Sinfonikoa) and Lur-Itzalak (commissioned by the Printemps des Arts of Monte Carlo).

His works have been played in many countries (France, Germany, the Netherlands, Israel, Spain, Italy, Ukraine, Denmark, United Kingdom, Russia, USA, Austria, and others) in the framework of prestigious festivals such as: Musica (Strasbourg), Ars Musica (Brussels), Festival d’Automne (Paris), Éclat (Stuttgart), Witten (Germany), Présences in Radio-France, Philharmonic Green Umbrella New Music series (Los Angeles), Gaudeamus Muziekweek (Amsterdam), International Society of Contemporary Music (Copenhagen), Festival of Contemporary Music (Alicante, Spain).

His music has been played by such renowned orchestras and ensembles as, among others, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Radio France, the Symphony Orchestra of Jerusalem, the National Orchestra of Spain, the Symphony Orchestra of Euskadi, the Symphony Orchestra of Bilbao, the Spanish Broadcast Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Teatre Lliure of Barcelona, the ensembles Gaudeamus, Ictus and Accroche Note, the Ensemble Barcelona 216, the Conjunto Ibérico de Violoncellos, Ensemble Wiener Collage.

He has been commissioned by the Ministry of Culture (France), the Basque Government, the CDMC (Spain), Radio France, ABRSM of London, the Orquestra de Cadaqués, the Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid, and others.

Lazkano gave orchestration lessons at the Strasburg Conservatoire and composition lessons at the Higher Academy of Music of Catalonia in Barcelona.

At present, he is professor of orchestration at the Higher Academy of Music of the Basque Country "Musikene".

Igeltsoen Laborategia (Laboratory of Chalks):

Itzalen Zikloa (Cycle of Shadows):

Other Chamber Music:

In 2007, the French Academy of Fine Arts gives him the Georges Bizet Award; he was also a prizewinner of the Institute of Music and Drama Arts, the Colegio de España, and the Gaudeamus Foundation.

While resident with the Joven Orquesta Nacional de España, he had the opportunity of composing several pieces which were performed, among others, at the Auditorio Nacional in Madrid and Berlin Konzerthaus.