Evangelia Rigaki

(b. 1980)
Evangelia Rigaki

Exploring notions of theatricality in music..

Evangelia Rigaki has a diverse composition portfolio ranging from instrumental works to experimental music theatre, opera and dance. Her compositions are rooted in instrumental theatre and experimental music theatre.

Operas and music theatre pieces she has recently composed are ‘Bumblepuppy’, libretto W.N. Herbert, Tête à Tête Opera Festival 2008; ‘Gesprekken Van De Ziel’, after the song ‘Hadith Al Rouh’ by Oum Kulthum, director Sjaron Minailo, Operadagen Rotterdam Festival, 2008; ‘Little Instruments of Apprehension, libretto W.N. Herbert, choreography Darren Ellis, Tête à Tête Opera Festival 2009; Exiles, director Sjaron Minailo, Babel Festival 2009; ‘Lullabaloo’, libretto W.N. Herbert, Tête à Tête Opera Festival 2010; ‘Professional Suicide’, libretto Tamsin Collison, Vox-Linbury Studio 2011; ‘Ode to Debt’, libretto W.N. Herbert, Beckett Theatre, 2012; ‘AntiMidas, or, Bankers in Hades’, libretto W.N. Herbert, director John Lloyd Davies, Beckett Theatre, 2013.

Her doctoral research (2007, Royal Holloway University of London, supervised by Philip Cashian and Tansy Davies) explored notions of theatricality in music. In 2008 she was awarded the ENMR (European Network for Musicological Research) Fellowship for post-doctoral research on experimental music theatre at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. She has participated in several composition residencies in Aldeburgh (Jerwood Opera Writing Programme 2006, 2007 (with Sir Harrison Birtwistle and Girogio Battistelli), Mixed Media, 2008 (with Jonathan Harvey) and Royal Opera House (Vox Programme 2009, 2010).

Since 2010 she has been a lecturer at Trinity College Dublin where she teaches composition to undergraduate and postgraduate students and currently supervises 6 PhD students. In March 2014 she organized the International Composition Conference, 'Composition in the 21st Century'. She is the Director of Trinity College Dublin’s Music Composition Centre and the Director of the MPhil in Composition.

She is currently working on 'The Pregnant Box' (Miniature Operas for one audience member, singer and flautist in a confession box and [a wandering] choir), that will be premiered during 'Research Night' at TCD on September 2014 and the object music theatre piece ‘Mr. Jean and Mr. Jean’, (director Agnes Limbos) to be premiered in Luxembourg by Lucilin Ensemble in April 2015.