Biography


Samu Gryllus was born in 1976 Budapest, Hungary. He earned his BFA from the Franz Liszt Music Academy in jazz-bass and jazz-pedagogy in 2001. In 2007 he received his MFA in Media Composition and in 2012 in Composition from the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna (MDW), where he studied under Michael Jarrell and Klaus Peter Sattler. In 2005 with the help of the Erasmus Program Samu studied composition and experimental music with Walter Zimmerman and Daniel Ott at the University of Arts (UDK) in Berlin. In 2008/2009 he studied with Alvin Lucier, Anthony Braxton and Ron Kuivila at the Wesleyan University (Connecticut, USA) as a Fulbright Scholar. He started his doctoral studies at the University of Theater and Film Art in Budapest in 2013. His research area is the multidisciplinary performance art and the instrumental theater. Since 2013 teaches composition at the Vienna Music Institute in Vienna. Between the age of 15 and 30 he worked in 40 theatre and film productions in various countries (Austria, France, Ireland, The Netherlands, US, and Hungary). Samu has studied Hindustani, Javanese and Balinese classical music and participated in master courses of ao. George Aperghis, Peter Eötvös, Johnatan Harvey and Marco Stroppa. He recieved numerous grants (Theodor Körner Preis in 2012, Zoltán Kodály Composition Grant in 2009/11, Grant of the Czibulka Foundation in 2010, Artisjus Creative Grant 2008/12, Sylt:Quelle Resident Scholarship in 2008, etc.) His works have been performed at various festivals (Wien Modern, Bartok Festival), and at various locations (Carnegie Hall, Wiener Konzerthaus, Palace of Arts (MüPa) Budapest, in museums, parks and botanic gardens). His first chamber opera (AOIHANA) was premiered at the Sophiensaele, Berlin in 2007. In 2009 he was co-operating with the Kitchen Budapest Innovation Lab at the Brooklyn Museum of Arts on an interactive sound-installation for 4 iphones and video-.projection (OperaLooper I-IV). He composed his mono-opera in 2012 (Blaubarts) for Rupert Bergmann, for the commission of the Theater an der Wien. His most recent Opera was composed for the Peter Eötvös Institute in 2013. He is a boardmember of the "Átlátszó Hang" Festival in Budapest. In 2008, together with his colleagues he co-founded MuPATh (Music- Performance-Art-Theater), an organization whose mission is to create interdisciplinary collaborations. He is an active soundpainter and giving workshops on many universities in the region.He is the founder of the Hungarian Soundpainting Society (Maszat), member of the W.H. Performing Band, the artist group IKULT (Internationale Kulturplattform), and the Austrian section of the International Society for Contemporary Music. He often works with musicians coming from diverse musical - social background, as well as folk and jazz musicians together. In some of his works he operates with his own musically instructed Tarot-cards. Living with his family in Budapest and Vienna.