Christophe Mirkes

Biography

Christophe Mirkes is a 25-year-old violinist, pianist and composer from Luxembourg. After finishing his degrees in violin, piano and music theory at the Conservatoire de la Ville de Luxembourg, he pursued his violin studies at the University of Performing Arts in Graz (AT), The University of Sydney (Sydney Conservatorium of Music) (AU) and the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya in Barcelona (ES). He graduated in July 2021 and concluded his studies with a Master of Music (performance).
 
He has appeared as a soloist as a violinist, pianist as well as a soprano soloist while being a member of the ‘Pueri Cantores’, the boys choir of the Conservatorium in Luxembourg.
 
In 2010, he won a first prize for his piano quartet composition ‘Liber Esse’ at the first international composition competition in Luxembourg (Artistes en herbe). The same year he won a gold medal as a pianist at the ‘Concours pour jeunes solistes’ in Luxembourg.
 
His latest pizzicato compositions ‘Bora Bora’ and ‘Hawaii’ were released in 2021 and are available on all platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, ...). Christophe will be releasing two more productions this year: his composition for 2 pianos, called ‘The Christmas Mingle’, will be released on the fourth Sunday of Advent. Christophe's Christmas EP, which includes 4 traditional European Christmas songs he arranged for violin and orchestra, will already be released on the third Sunday of Advent.

You can follow Christophe on Instagram, so you won't miss any of his future releases (@christophe.mirkes).

About the composition:

This time, I submitted a composition for string quartet, called 'Awakening of the Night', which I composed in summer 2021. This work is all about the awakening of nocturnal (and therefore mysterious and often inconspicuous) flora and fauna after sunset... Imagine being in a forest at dusk. It's getting darker and quieter and you are aware of every little noise and the slightest motion in the dark.

I'm very lucky to be able to work together with the Ash quartet (@ashquartet), my friends from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music who practised, rehearsed and recorded this piece, so I can submit a real recording (and no computer software audio version) to this round of the competition. I would like to thank Marrianne Liu, Eva Li, Dana Lee and Seb Mansell for their support and dedication.