Stepan Sobanov is an Austrian composer who specialises in new media composition. He is one of our community members whose sound we selected as a favourite for our #WhatIfSoundSamples call for entries.
Stepan sent us several contributions for our #WhatIfSoundSamples call, and our favourite is “jaw harp,” which you can listen to here:
What inspired you to submit to us?
What if?’s call for entries reminded me of Joseph Gordon-Lewitt’s HITRECORD, where people from different arts collaborate, and I’m a big fan of this concept!
What do you do (by day)?
I write music for film and video games, and study composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. Beside that I started working for Igudesman & Joo in 2015, which has been a great experience so far! This month I’m joining the sofasession team, a place where you can find musicians from all over the world and make music with them online in realtime.
What music are you currently working on? What is your process like?
It’s hard for me to tell since I rarely have the same approach twice…generally the main ingredients are a deadline, tears of despair, a late night, and voila!
Right now I’m working on a composition that comes from heart and represents the search for one’s inner voice. It is written for a piano trio (piano, viola and double bass) and a speaker, who quotes fragments from Hesse’s Narziss und Goldmund. The composition is supposed to show the conflict and correlation between rationalism and emotionalism. It will be premiered in May; the solo viola player in the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra will perform the piece, which is a great honour.
Stepan’s musical journey is full of very diverse audio creations, so it may give you some inspiration, too! You can follow his composer account or his sound sample account, both on SoundCloud.
Featured image courtesy of Stepan Sobanov. Photo credit: Fabian Bottesch.
what if? 
