Marios Joannou Elia was born 1978 in Cyprus. He studied at the University Mozarteum in Salzburg in the composition class of Adriana Hoelszky, where he graduated the Master Degree with distinction. Additional composition studies led him in the master class of Klaus Huber at the University for Music in Basel. Elia holds Bachelor Degrees from Mozarteum in guitar performance, in music education and in music theory also with distinction. He has taken part in several master classes for composition and multimedia art with artists like G. Aperghis, R. Boulanger, B. Furrer, H. Lachenmann, B. Schaeffer und K. Stockhausen.

As the Mozarteum dux during academic year 2001/02, the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education and Art honoured him with a scholarship. Elia has been the recipient of numerous scholarships from organisations such as the European Centre for the Arts Hellerau, the Hinrichsen Foundation Award London, the Rector scholarship of Mozarteum, composition scholarship of the Federal Chancellor of Austria, the Allianz Cultural Foundation and the Republic of Cyprus.

He has received over 15 prizes and distinctions from international composition competitions, including 1st Prize at the "Lutoslawski Award 2004", 1st Prize at the "2nd International Composition Competition of Volos 2004", 1st Prize in the "Savarez-Corelli competition 2006", the "Raiffeisen Klassik Preis 2004" and the Patronize Award of the "BMW musica viva composition Prize 2005". Recently he has been laureate of the "1st Hamburger Klangwerktage" and of the "Composition prize of the 12th Viennese summer seminars for new music".

From 2003 until 2006 he has been engaged as artistic and scientific assistant in the composition department at Mozarteum. Marios Joannou Elia’s compositions receive regular performances in important concert halls worldwide.

I always work with the musicians close together. The composition is not so easy and requires several rehearsals. The players are "actors" at the same time. I also use (if available) special stage positioning, lights, laptops for the score reading for each player, costumes. I always compose a scenery. For me composition is a "spectacle". The players were very enthusiasted about the composition and the public aswell. At the beginning it is hard to "dive" into the composition, but as soon as this happens, the players enjoy it because it is also a kind of an unusual and unexpected "show". At least these were my impressions until now. M.J. Elias