About

Composer Oren Boneh writes music characterized by its energy and dynamism. Its foundation is made up of vastly contrasting characters, ranging from abrasive and mechanical to humorous and supple. As described by Le Monde, his works are distinguished by a "constant tension between two opposing poles - one civilized and the other savage." The music plays with listener expectations of the characters’ behaviors in order to create unpredictability and friction.

Oren has been commissioned and performed internationally by ensembles such as Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Proton Bern, Vertixe Sonora, Alarm Will Sound, Quatuor Tana, Ensemble Meitar, Loadbang, Ensemble Fractales, the Divertimento Ensemble, and the New York New Music Ensemble, and at festivals such as Festival ManiFeste (FR), Impuls (AT), and Images Sonores (BE). Oren also works frequently with artists from other disciplines: his hour-long work, La Voix du Trait, is a collaboration with calligrapher Frank Lalou; he collaborated with choreographer Ayelen Parolin on her new work With (2021), which toured across Europe, and worked with art students at the Beaux-Arts de Paris in collaboration with IRCAM to create two installations/performances as part of the exhibition Orbital Orchestra at Festival ManiFeste 2021.

At the moment, Oren is working on a new work 40-minute work for Ensemble Intercontemporain and electronics in collaboration with IRCAM to be premiered in February 2025. Recent projects include a concerto for Richard Haynes (clarinet) and Ensemble Proton Bern, a work for Klangforum Wien commissioned by impuls in Graz, and most recently premiered in March 2024, La Voix du Trait, an hour of music for Ensemble Fractales and electronics with live calligraphy.

First Prize winner of the 2017 Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award Competition for his piece, Winter Walks that Gravel my Voice, Oren has been selected in numerous other competitions such as the Impuls International Composition Competition, Franco Donatoni International Competition, the ASCAP Morton Gould Awards, the Loadbang Commission Competition, and Protonwerk. Oren has been a composer fellow at the Missouri International Composers Festival, Cultivate at the Copland House, Soundstreams, Tzlil Meudcan, CEME, Festival Mixtur, UC Davis Revision/s, and at the Millay Colony for the Arts, the Visby International Centre for Composers and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts.

Oren is currently based in Brussels. He received the George Ladd Prix de Paris to complete the IRCAM Cursus in Paris in 2019-20. Oren completed his PhD in composition at the University of California, Berkeley where he worked with Franck Bedrossian and Edmund Campion. Supported by a Fulbright fellowship during the 2015-2016 year, Oren worked in Dresden, Germany studying composition and working at the Dresden Music Cognition Lab. Oren has previously studied at McGill University with Brian Cherney and Philippe Leroux, the Royal Danish Academy of Music with Hans Abrahamsen and Juliana Hodkinson, and the University of Denver with Chris Malloy and William Hill.

Oren's scores are published by Babel Scores and qPress and he is a member of the Forum des Compositeurs in Belgium. Oren is the artistic coordinator of Ensemble Fractales in Brussels.