© Vicente Núñez

Biography

Mikel Iturregi is a Basque-Spanish composer living in Paris. His recent music combines an interest for fragile, hazy and faded sounds with a rhythmic, at times repetitive approach. Born in 1997 in a town close to Bilbao, he studied composition in Musikene (Donostia / San Sebastián) with Gabriel Erkoreka and Ramon Lazkano. Since 2021 he is studying at the Conservatoire de Paris, in Gérard Pesson’s class for instrumental composition, and in Yan Maresz and Luis Naon’s electroacoustic composition class.

His music has been performed by Quatuor Diotima, Ensemble Recherche, Ensemble Intercontemporain soloists, NAMES Ensemble, IEMA Ensemble and the Bilbao Symphony. Orchestra to name a few. He has participated in international composition academies such as Lucerne Festival Academy, Impuls (Graz), Mixtur (Barcelona) and Klangspuren (Schwaz- Innsbruck); and in Spanish music festivals such as the BBVA Contemporary Music Cycle (Bilbao),Musikaste festival (Errenteria), Hotsetan experimental music cycle (Bilbao), Musikagileak concert cycle (Basque Country) or Ensemble Kuraia’s concert season (Bilbao).

In  2024 he received the Colegio de España / INAEM composition prize, giving him the opportunity to program a portrait concert in Paris during 2026, including a newly commissioned piece. During 2024/25 he participated in the AVEC residency program led by Les Cris de Paris and Geoffroy Jourdain, for which he wrote pieces for children’s choir at the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles and the Maîtrise Populaire de l’Opéra Comique in Paris.

He has taken part in different educational projects as well. He participated in three editions of Soinua Iratzarri, a project aimed at students from 10 to 12 years of age with the objective of bringing them closer to the process of musical creation and fostering their sensitivity towardscontemporary music. In  2022 he received a commission from the Basque Student’s Orchestra, conducted by Iker Sánchez Silva, for which he wrote Bi sehaska kanta (Jolasean II).

Work

Elurra bezain isil

Pierrot ensemble (flute, clarinet, piano, accordion, percussion, double bass)
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Work nominated 
for the 2025 Music Springboard Award

The title of the piece is taken from the first line of this short poem by the Basque writer Joseba

Sarrionandia:

Elurra bezain isil badator iluna Isila bezain ilun badator elurra Elurra bezain ilun badator isila Isila bezain elur badator iluna Iluna bezain elur badator isila Iluna bezain isil badator elurra

As silent as snow comes darkness As dark as silence comes snow
As dark as snow comes silence
As snow as silence comes darkness As snow as darkness comes silence As silent as darkness comes snow

As in the text, my piece is made up of a restrained vocabulary, insistently permutating a few elements, as if seeking to shed new light on the same object. The obsession centered on this object leads it to exhaustion: the piece is like a narrative of its journey, of a transformation contained within itself.