Alexander SIGMAN (b.1980) is currently in the dissertation phase of the doctoral program in Music Composition at Stanford University, having studied primarily with Brian Ferneyhough. He has pursued further post-graduate study with Chaya Czernowin at the University for Music and Performing Arts, Vienna (2007), and attended the intensive one-year course of the Institute of Sonology at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague during 2007-2008. This year, he has been awarded a residency fellowship at the Akademie Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart). Prior to Stanford, Sigman obtained a BM in Music Composition and a BA in Cognitive Sciences from Rice University.
He has received performances at several music programs and festivals, such as June in Buffalo , the Darmstädter-Ferienkurse, the Abbaye de Royaumont, the Wellesley Composers Conference, and the SCI National Conference. His music has been performed throughout Europe and the US by such ensembles as the Arditti Quartet, les Percussions de Strasbourg, and Ensemble SurPlus, as well as soloists such as Magnus Andersson, Eliot Gattegno, and Françoise Rivalland. Since his undergraduate studies, Sigman has received several commissions, awards and grants, including the American Composers’ Forum Encore grant, Columbia University’s Bearns Prize (2006), a Fulbright scholarship to the Netherlands, and a Jezek Prize nomination. In June 2007, he was composer-in-residence at the Musiques Démesurées festival in Clermont-Ferrand, France.
Sigman has also authored several articles and papers on various subjects, including a book chapter on music and aesthetics (to be published in an anthology edited by Steven Takasugi) and a study of early Schönberg lieder, conducted at the Schönberg-Center in Vienna (2005). Since 2007, he has been co-editor of the Search Journal for New Music and Culture and Managing Director of the 12-member Dutch ensemble Modelo62.