Ostrava Days kicked off last night with a
full house and much excitement. The launching multimedia event took place at
Ostrava’s abandoned and gritty Coal Mine Michal. Canadian composer/sound artist
Gordon Monahan’s new installation, A Piano Listening to Itself – Chopin Chord,
graced these haunted grounds. The work consisted of six long piano wires
suspended from a tower to a piano positioned at the foot of the tower. Audio
recordings, derived from piano works by Frederic Chopin and redeveloped into
new compositions, were transmitted into the long piano strings using vibrating
coils, which caused the piano strings to vibrate in sympathy with the audio
signals.
The indoor performances began with Música mecanica para chapas (Mechanical
Music for Sheet Metal), a work exploring sounding space and composed by Cecilia
Lopez, one of the young composers participating to Ostrava Days Summer
Institute. Dressed as Harlequin, virtuoso clarinetist Karel Dohnal gave a
playful and spirited performance of Karl Stockhausen’s Harlekin. Those daring
to venture further into the multi-room industrial complex were treated to
Daniël Ploeger’s live installation of Electrode, in which the Dutch artist
recorded the movements of his sphincter muscle with an anal electrode. The
evening continued with Hamburg-based double bassist John Eckhardt performing
his meditative, sonic landscape, Ferns. It was followed by maverick
Munich-based singer Salome Kammer in the first movement of Kurt Schwitters’
challenging Ursonate, an example of early phonic poetry. Capping the
evening, American baritone Thomas Buckner and composer Larry Polansky led the
student orchestra, Ostrava Days Ensemble, in an open and dynamic improvisation.
Stay tuned for more and don’t miss today’s mini-marathon of electronic music
taking place at Ostrava’s Gallery of Fine Arts!
