Pierre-Henri Wicomb

Pierre-Henri Wicomb is a South African composer based in Cape Town. He works in musical environments encompassing everything from composition collaborations with [unrehearsed] audience members, theatre/film music to acoustic/electroacoustic art music. His interaction with jazz as a pianist and creating soundtracks laid the ground for his ‘harmonic’ pivot-pitch organisational system and his complicated relationship with ‘melody’ which except for its familiar application is also reconstituted as different musical elements within his work.

Wicomb’s music has featured at the Festival D’Automne (Paris 2013), New York City Electronic Music Festival (2016, 2018), International Computer Music Conference (Utrecht 2016), Festivalen for Svensk Konstmusik (Stockholm 2019), Forum Wallis (Leuk, Switzerland 2013, 2014, 2021), Wilde Bloesem series (Amsterdam 2006), Infecting the City (2013) and Unyazi and Bowed Electron Festivals (Cape Town 2019-2021) to name a few. He is the co-founder of the successful annual Purpur Festival (Cape Town) hosting the works and performances of local and international musicians.

Ensembles Wicomb has worked with include the Asko ensemble, Ensemble Reconsil, Stockholm Saxophone Quartet, L’Instant Donne, Ums n Jip, Potage du Jour/InterZones, DissonArt, Ensemble Insomnia, X[iksa], Duo Axelsson Nilsson, soloist Soren Hermansson and the Kwazulu-Natal Philharmonic Festival to name a few.

Wicomb was selected for the greek ensemble DissonArt’s Miniatures Project and won the South Africa New Music Ensemble (SANME) call for scores. He was a finalist in the Ars Electronica Forum Wallis (Switzerland) call for works 2021 receiving a ‘highly commended’. He won the Ablaze Records call for electroacoustic works 2022. Outside of his contemporary works Wicomb has also completed a few soundtracks for TV and theatre, receiving the SAFTA award for best original soundtrack for a TV drama and receiving the Fleur du Cap for best original theatre soundtrack/score. His music has been recorded on Leo Records, Orlando Records, MovieScore Media and Peer Music Record Labels.

Wicomb is currently working on completing his opera Melody-Malady-Melody-Malady (MMMM) for its premiere in 2023 in collaboration with the Swiss improv duo InterZones merging the fields of improvisation, psychoanalysis and composition.

www.wicomb.net