Clara Olivares

Clara Olivares, a Franco-Spanish composer, was born in Strasbourg in 1993.

After studying the piano at the Conservatory of Strasbourg, she entered the composition curriculum with Mark André in 2011, where she continued studying with Philippe Manoury, Daniel D’Adamo, Thierry Blondeau and Annette Schlüntz. She also received advice from Chaya Czernowin, Philippe Schoeller and Alberto Posadas.

She holds a Master’s degree in composition from the Académie Supérieure de Musique in Strasbourg and a Bachelor degree in musicology from the Sorbonne University, as well as a Diploma of Musical Studies in Piano and Chamber Music. She is currently pursuing a PhD of musical composition at the University of California at Berkeley (USA) under Franck Bedrossian, Carmine Cella, Ed Campion and Ken Ueno.

She obtained the Sacem Prize in 2013 for her Diploma of Musical Studies in composition which she received with the highest mention. She was awarded the Michelle Foundation’s Music Composition Award in Luxembourg in 2015. Her compositions have been performed at the Musica Festival in 2015, 2016 and 2017, as well as at the Impuls Festival (Germany) and the Musique-Action Festival.

She has been selected twice for ManiFeste Academy at Ircam (France): in 2015 for the electronic music workshop and in 2018 for the orchestra composition workshop. She is admitted at the Ircam Cursus Program on Composition and Computer Music 2020/21.

At 23, she wrote her first opera, Mary, for which she obtained an « aide à la création » from the Ministry of Culture. It was premiered in 2017 by the Ensemble XXI.n.

She participated in 2019 in the Opera Academy at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence under Pascal Dusapin, and won the Nicola DeLorenzo Composition Prize the same year.

Her works have been performed by Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France, UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra (US), Orchestra Mitteldeutsche Kammerphilharmonie (Allemagne), Ensemble Fonema Consort, Sound Icon, Ensemble Eco, Quince (US), Ensemble XXI.n (France), Ensemble Lucilin (Luxembourg), Duo Atomos (Brasil), Duo Mazumal (US), Voix de Stras’, L’Arrach’Chœur (France), and by Jean-Frédéric Neuburger, Philippe Hattat, Daniel Ciampolini and Minh-Tam Nguyen (from the Percussions de Strasbourg), Marie-Andrée Joerger, Claude Georgel, Szuwha Wu, Keiko Murakami, et has worked with the following conductors: David Milnes, Peter Rundel, Aki Schmitt, Hanz Kretz, Pierre Hoppé and Catherine Bolzinger.

Her music has been performed in the United States, France, Spain, Germany, Finland, Brazil, Venezuela and Luxembourg. It has been broadcast on the radio (France Musique, Radio Accent 4, RCF, Radio Nacional de España, Radio MDR Figaro), and two of her compositions are published by Editions Alphonse Leduc.

She is Associate-Composer at the Orchestre de chambre de Paris during the 2020/2021 season.