Samu Gryllus is an original and versatile artist of his generation. As a composer often works with musicians coming from diverse music-social background. His main interest is multidisciplinarity in performing arts, with focus on the performed musical identity. He has experience in sound art as well as in academic teaching. Since 2010 he counts as an expert of Soundpainting - a sign-language used in education and performing arts.
Samu was born in 1976 Budapest, Hungary. He earned his BFA from the Franz Liszt Music Academy in jazz-bass and jazz-pedagogy in 2001. In 2007 he received his MFA in Media Composition and in 2012 in Composition from the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna (MDW), where he studied under Michael Jarrell and Klaus Peter Sattler. In 2005 with the help of the Erasmus Program Samu studied composition and experimental music-theater with Walter Zimmermann and Daniel Ott at the University of Arts (UDK) in Berlin. In 2008/2009 he studied with Alvin Lucier, Anthony Braxton and Ron Kuivila at the Wesleyan University (Connecticut, USA) as a Fulbright Scholar. He finished his doctoral studies (DLA) at the University of Theater and Film Art in Budapest in 2019. His research area is the multidisciplinary performance art and the instrumental theater.
Samu participated master courses of ao. George Aperghis, Peter Eötvös, Johnatan Harvey and Marco Stroppa. He recieved numerous grants ( State-stipend in Composition of Austria in 2021, National Prominence Grant 2017/18, Theodor Körner Preis in 2012, Zoltán Kodály Composition Grant in 2009/11, Grant of the Czibulka Foundation in 2010, Artisjus Creative Grant 2008/12, Sylt:Quelle Resident Scholarship in 2008, etc.)
His works have been performed at various festivals (Wien Modern, Bartok Festival, ManiFeste), and at various locations (Carnegie Hall, Wiener Konzerthaus, Hungarian State Opera, as well as parks and botanic gardens). He composed chamber operas for commissions of Sophiensaele Berlin and the Novoflot Company (AOIHANA 2007), Theater an der Wien and Rupert Bergmann (Blaubarts, 2011), Peter Eötvös Contemporary Music Foundation (Out at S.E.A. 2013), Hungarian State Opera (Két Nő, 2017), MuPATh in cooperation with the WUK Performing Arts and the Musiktheatertage Wien (Hostageopera 2021-22) His interactive installations has been exhibited ao. at Brooklyn Museum of Arts (Opera Looper I-IV), Ludwig Museum Budapest (Nia-Nia-Harmonia), Tallin Architecture Gallery (ANSaw).
He is teaching at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna since 2021, was leading the composition department at the Vienna Music Institute between 2013 and 2022, taught New Chamber music for Instrumentalists at the Szechenyi University between 2014 and 2019, and Soundpainting for actors and all incoming Erasmus students at the University of Theater and FIlm-Art between 2015 and 2019.
Samu is often initiating, leading and participating in artistic research projects, such as HoME - House.Music.Europe, an oral history sonification project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, or the Creative (Mis)Understandings, a project aims to develop transcultural approaches of inspiration, regarded as mutually appreciated intentional and reciprocal artistic influence based on solidarity, initiated and led by Weiya Lin and Johannes Kretz, financed by the Austrian Science Fonds.
Samu is co-founder and curator of the "Átlátszó Hang" Festival in Budapest. He is an active soundpainter, giving workshops and using regularly the multidisciplinary sign-language. He is member of the W.H. Performing Band, the Hermina Collective, an ambitious group of visual artists and composers of the same generation, the artist group IKULT (Internationale Kulturplattform), and the Austrian section of the International Society for Contemporary Music. In some of his works he operates with his own musically instructed Tarot-cards.