EVIS SAMMOUTIS
Evis Sammoutis' works have been commissioned by festivals and organizations, such as Venice Biennale, Klangspuren, Royaumont, Barlow Endowment, Ernst von Siemens Foundation, Chamber Music America, New Music USA and Internationaler Musikwettbewerb der ARD München. His music was performed in more than 45 countries around the world, at leading festivals and contemporary music series, such as Tanglewood, MusicNOW, Gaudeamus, Music of Today and ISCM, and broadcast on several international radio stations, such as BBC Radio 3, SWR2, Radio France and RAI3.
Evis has received numerous accolades and over 40 compositional awards, prizes and scholarships as well as recognition at competitions, including the Royal Philharmonic Society Award (England), the Irino Prize (Japan) and the Franz Liszt Scholarship (Germany); first prizes at the Andres Segovia (Spain), Look and Listen (USA), Euskal Herriko Txistulari Elkartea (Spain), and Dundee (Scotland) competitions; second prizes at Concours Dutilleux (France), Jurgenson (Russia), Y.A Papaioannou (Greece), Leo Brouwer (USA) and Samobor (Croatia) competitions; special prize at the Fifth Annual Composition Contest of the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music (USA); an honorable mention at the IMRO Composers Competition (Ireland); a DAAD Research Fellowship (Germany) and two Fulbright Scholarships for Advanced Research. In 2025 he was awarded a distinguished senior research fellowship from GATES International Excellence in the Humanities Program at la Maison de la Création et de l'Innovation, Université Grenoble Alpes, France, and he was also a visiting fellow at St. Cross College, University of Oxford. In the summers of 2026 and 2027 he will be in residence at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest as a Fulbright research scholar.
Performers include leading ensembles and specialists in new music such as the Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien, Neue Vocalsolisten, the Arditti, Kreutzer, KAIROS, Doelen, Zephyr and Prometeo String Quartets, Ensemble Nomad, Ensemble Aleph, EXAUDI, Het Collectief, New York Woodwind Quintet, Arirang and Chantily Quintets, Les Percussions de Strasbourg, Endymion and members of Philharmonia Orchestra. Orchestras include the London Symphony Orchestra, Holland Symfonia, the Orchestra of Opera North and the Athens Symphony Orchestra, and soloists include Peter Sheppard Skaerved, David Alberman, Uli Fussenegger, Matthijs Koene, Alan Thomas, Dieter Hennings Yeomans, Movses Pogossian, Rohan de Saram, Sarah Leonard, Julian Warburton, Adrian Spillett and John Potter, to name a few. Conductors include Christoph Poppen, Elgar Howarth, Kasper de Roo and Franck Ollu, among others.
Evis is Associate Professor of Composition at the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, and he is also the Co-founder and Artistic Director of the International Pharos Contemporary Music Festival, now in its 16th season. His catalogue includes over 60 works scored for various combinations, and since 2013, all his works are published exclusively by the University of York Music Press, where Evis is a House Composer. His first monographic album was released on the KAIROS label in Spring 2025 to critical acclaim.
A passionate advocate for contemporary music and music education, he served a two-year term as an elected member of the IMC (International Music Council) Executive Board, the world's largest network of organizations and institutions working in the field of music with direct access to over 1,000 organizations in 150 countries. He also served a three-year term as an elected AEC (Association Européenne des Conservatoires/Académies de Musique et Musikhochschulen) Council Member, an organization that represents over 300-member institutions for professional music in 57 countries. Furthermore, he was the Cyprus coordinator of “Interfaces”, a large-scale Creative Europe funded program, and served on the scientific and organizing committees for numerous international conferences and festivals, such as the Sound and Music Computing Conference (SMC).
Evis was born in Cyprus in 1979, where he had his first musical lessons at the age of 6. By the age of 16, he had already obtained both the LRSM and the Performance and Teaching Diploma with distinction before moving to England in 1998 for university studies. Upon graduation from the University of Hull with a first-class degree (BMus) in all disciplines and the Departmental Prize, he completed his PhD studies in Musical Composition at the University of York in 2006. Evis has also furthered his studies at world-renowned festivals, seminars, and workshops, including Darmstadt, IRCAM, Royaumont and Tanglewood as a composition fellow, where he studied with leading composers such as Brian Ferneyhough, Georges Aperghis and George Benjamin. Following his PhD studies, Evis was awarded a Wingate Foundation Scholarship (2005–2007) to pursue his compositional research independently, whilst teaching Composition and Orchestration at Nottingham University (2005–2007), guitar performance at York University (2002–2007), and composition at Hull University (2006). He subsequently served as Assistant and then as Associate Professor in Music Composition and Theory at European University Cyprus (until 2016), having also served as scientific collaborator to the same institution prior to this appointment, and then as Associate Professor of Composition and Director of the Electronic Music Studios at Ithaca College, NY, where he spent 7 years.