Virginie Aster

Composer

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Biography

Virginie Aster

Virginie Aster                                         trained in music in Paris, both at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique & de Danse (CNSMDP) and at the Ecole Normale de Musique. She graduated with the following specialties: violin, solfège, harmony and musical analysis.

   She was successively appointed a teacher of Musical Training at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Paris and a teacher of Violin at the Conservatoire de Longjumeau. Virginie Aster has also developed a method for controlling stage fright and mastering scenic expression, targeting musicians, which she currently dispenses for a range of students (at CNSMDP) and musicians (notably the Paris Philharmonic Orchestra).

   In 2007, Virginie decided to devote more of her time to musical composition which has always been a passion. The specialized music publisher Librairie Éditions L'Harmattan published her sonata for solo violin, Sous Influences, as well as her DVD entitled Mouvements: concert, danse & vidéo which provides a scenic representation allying movements embodied by contemporary music, dance and video.

   She later composed Turbulences, for violin and piano, first interpreted at the Festival International de Musique des Karellis 2010 and for which she won the Composition Prize awarded by the Festival Mondial de l'Image Sous-Marine 2010.

   Partance, a work for string quarter and soprano, had its debut performance at the Heures Musicales de Nativelle in September 2010, followed shortly afterwards by extracts from her opera La Montagne de l'Âme, inspired by Gao Xingjian’s eponymous novel Soul Mountain, performed at Paris (8th district) City Hall in December 2010 in the presence of the author, winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Literature. The same concert also saw the debut performance of Instants, a piece for solo viola.

   In 2012, Virginie Aster completed the composition of Eve Noire, a work for violin, African drums and video which lasts 1h20, has been recorded by France’s Maison de la Radio and saw its debut performance at the Festival International de Musique Cordes & Pics directed by violonist Jean-Marc Phillips-Varjabédian (2013) before a new performance in the framework of the Concerts de l'Hôtel Cail at Paris (8th district) City Hall in 2014. Substance, a piece for flute and string trio, was also interpreted for the first time in February 2012 by the Helios Ensemble.

   Virginie Aster has equally composed short pieces for piano and numerous works for violin including Les Mystères d’Eleusis as well as Suite Géométrique for two violins. In 2018, Instants Photographiques for solo viola was published by Gérard Billaudot Editeur; the piece is based on a lecture by Etienne Klein on the subject of Einstein and has become a staple set piece for music competitions. Sous Influences, a sonata for solo violin, was also published by Editions Gérard Billaudot in 2020 and will be followed by Street Music, equally for solo violin, in 2021.