204 pages, 21 x 26 cm
Published by Ostrava Center for New Music.
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Introduction
This is my fourth introduction to the Ostrava Days Report, which documents Ostrava Days since its beginning in 2001. I have always commented in detail on all activities of the Institute and Festival, most of which have been ongoing, from its start through 2007. Instead of repeating myself, I will also report on new developments and events beyond Ostrava Days up to the present. But first, here is a short overview of Ostrava Days 2007.
In 2007, we accepted 35 students from 12 European countries, United States, South Korea, New Zealand and Brazil who worked for three weeks with lecturers Muhal Richard Abrams, Sebastian Claren, Petr Kotík, Alvin Lucier, Ben Patterson, Kaija Saariaho and Christian Wolff and numerous guest composers, performers and ensembles, all of whom worked within the framework of the Institute. The lecturers and guests interacted with students in classes and at one-on-one meetings, as well as performing at the Ostrava Days 2007 Festival. The activities of the Institute were closely intertwined with the festival, organized during the last week of Ostrava Days and consisting of 15 concerts, 96 compositions, of which 25 were world premiers. One of our most satisfying achievements has been the continuing increase in the number of audience members, especially young people, coming not only from Northern Moravia, but from afar. One of visitors wrote to us that “taking one week of my vacation time with [Ostrava Days] music was for me a true feast – incomparably greater than spending time as tourist at a seashore beach.” – Tomáš Soukup, Prague.
The most important new contributions outside of Ostrava Days were concerts and recordings of Ostravská banda. Ostravská banda was founded in 2005 by Petr Kotík as the resident chamber orchestra of Ostrava Days. During the past two years, it consolidated itself as a regularly performing ensemble, not just a biennial group. Already in Autumn 2006, it toured Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and France with a closing concert at the Paris Conservatoire. After Ostrava Days 2007, however, it took off with major concerts, first at festivals Prague Spring and Janáček May in May 2008 and then with a major tour with concerts in Poland, Czech Republic, Germany and Holland. At present, we are preparing a performance by Ostravská banda, at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center in New York on May 6, 2009 with the soloists Hana Kotková, violin and Daan Vandewalle, piano. Publishing became another important activity realized outside of Ostrava Days. In January 2008, Ostrava Center for New Music published a transcript of the panel discussion “Beginnings of New Music in Prague, 1959-1964,” scheduled as part of Ostrava Days 2007. All the still-living composers who were part of this important historic movement for Czech music participated. They included Rudolf Komorous, who talked to us via long-distance telephone from Victoria, British Columbia, Marek Kopelent, Peter Kolman and Petr Kotík, the founder of the first Czech new music group Musica viva pragensis. Our publication also included a short essay of reminiscences by Ladislav Kupkovič, another important participant. In March 2009, we released a double CD “Music of Ostrava Days Live,” as an enclosure to the March edition of the Czech music magazine HIS Voice. With the exception of Ligeti’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, recorded live at the Prague Spring Festival 2008, the two CDs contain live recordings from festivals Ostrava Days 2003, 2005, and 2007, including music by Morton Feldman, Muhal Richard Abrams, Paulina Załubska, Luigi Nono, Luciano Berio, Petr Kotík, and František Chaloupka.
The 3-week duration of the program and the participation of an internationally diverse student body, lecturers and musicians, orchestras and ensembles makes Ostrava Days one of the largest summer programs of its kind in the world. We are not geared toward hundreds students and artists. Instead, we are creating a small, close-knit community where everyone’s involvement counts. Despite the national and geographic diversity of individual participants, everyone gets to know each other well, working and living together. English is used as the “official” language of Ostrava Days, so there are no communication barriers between the participants, no matter where they come from. We work, eat and drink together, consuming, on occasion, a large amount of Czech beer. All that evolves in a quiet summer atmosphere, as Ostrava is not overrun by tourists. Other advantages of being in Ostrava include a philharmonic concert hall with flexible seating, a large resident symphony orchestra, the Janáček Philharmonic, as well as a new building of the Janáček Conservatory, not to mention a large and diverse audience.
The first week of Ostrava Days is devoted to theoretical work while the following two weeks focus on preparing and performing concerts even though lectures, seminars and discussions continue. This working environment where young composers participate in rehearsals and workshops, not just when their own pieces are being performed, but also those of their colleagues, is one of the most important aspects of Ostrava Days.
The Ostrava Days 2007 Festival was accompanied by an extensive booklet, containing detailed information about the program and musicians for each concert. Besides the festival itself and the “Beginnings of New Music in Prague, 1959-1964” panel discussion, we have also initiated an exhibit of the photographer Wolfgang Träger at the Gallery of Fine Arts in Ostrava, documenting the Fluxus movement. There was also a happening/performance by Ben Patterson, one of the founders of Fluxus who was also one of the guest artists at Ostrava Days. Works by Fluxus artists were also included in the festival, including pieces by Ben Patterson, Milan Knížák, Yoko Ono and many others. The program of the Ostrava Days 2007 Festival focused on music of the last 50 years, most of which is rarely heard at in the musical mainstream or academic institutions. First and most prominently, we performed works by participating composers, lectors, as well as students whose works were selected a few months prior to the festival. Another area of the festival’s interest is works by composers such as Ligeti, Nono, Stockhausen, Feldman, Cage, Cardew, Ustwolskaja, Xenakis, Brown and others. Another milestone at Ostrava Days was a performance of the opera Neither by Morton Feldman on a libretto by Samuel Beckett with Martha Cluver, soprano, and Peter Rundel, conducting. It was directed by Pamela Hunter of Media Arts Productions Zürich. I would also like to mention the 1-hour long Wu by Rudolf Komorous, for solo piano, symphonic works by B. A. Zimmermann and G. Ustwolskaja, as well as the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra by György Ligeti, performed by Hana Kotková, Ostravská banda with Roland Kluttig conducting. It caused a sensation. The same could be said about the performance of the Concert for Piano and Orchestra by John Cage in a version for two pianos (Joseph Kubera and Daan Vandewalle) and two orchestras, conducted by Kotík and Kluttig. I also found very important the performance of Canticum Ostrava under the direction of Yurii Galatenko at the 15-Century Saint Wenceslas Church. One of the discoveries by the Czech audience was “gran torso” by Helmut Lachenmann performed by Sonar Streichquartett from Berlin.
From it’s beginning, the mission of Ostrava Days has been to focus on working with an orchestra. This would not be possible without the active collaboration with the Janáček Philharmonic (JPO), who became our partner in producing the festival. Such a close association with an avant-garde music project is in itself a very unusual phenomenon in the context of today’s orchestral practice. I would like to express my deep gratitude to all the musicians of the orchestra and their director Peter Krajniak. Another equally important partner for Ostrava Days is the Janáček Conservatory and Grammar School in Ostrava, Soňa Javůrková, director. Both the JPO and the Conservatory have been providing us with ideal facilities, not only as far as the working conditions, but also because of their location in the center for the city. Further important support comes from Aréna Theater (Komorní scéna Aréna), Renáta Huserová, director, who for the past five years provided for the Ostrava Center for New Music ideal administrative platform. Primary support for Ostrava Days came again from the city of Ostrava, its mayor Petr Kajnar, and Deputy Mayor for Culture Lubomír Pospíšil. The generous grant from our general sponsor OKD, a.s., Klaus-Dieter Ralf Beck, director and the support of Zdeněk Bakala made possible for us to work without depending on the mainstream musical world. This was underscored by the support we received from many individuals, including the newly founded “Friends of Ostrava Days” who gave us not only financial but also moral support. Another very important contributor was The Ministry of the Culture of Czech Republic, Trust for Mutual Understanding (New York), Czech-German Fund for the Future, International Visegrad Fund, Multi Development Corporation (Ostrava) and Atelier Omicron-K (Prague). I would also like to extend my gratitude to Bessel Kok, Rick Haller, Petr Motloch, OKD, a.s., Igor Horváth, director of Czech Radio Ostrava and Ivan Krejčí.
We are grateful for the generous support of the Moravian-Silesian Region and its president Evžen Tošenovský, Hayes Lemmerz Autokola, a.s. Corporation, Goethe-Institute Prag and the Dutch firm Adams Musical Instruments, who helped us generously with obtaining percussion instruments for Ostravská banda. We have also received support from ČEZ Foundation, OSA Music Foundation, euroAWK s.r.o, Dalkia Czech Republic, a.s., Auto Heller, the Borough of Moravská Ostrava a Přívoz, Severomoravské vodovody a kanalizace Ostrava, a.s., USArtists International Foundation (USA), National Endowment for the Arts and Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The Kurt Weill Foundation for Music and the Embassy of the United States of America in Prague. Of the other supporters from Ostrava, I would like to thank to the Hotel Imperial, Elektra Palace, Hotel City Ostrava, Hotel Brioni, Epona – výlepová služba, BossCan Ostrava 3C, s. r. o., Ostrava City Information Centre, s.r.o., AWC Morava s.r.o., ISSA CZECH s.r.o. and the Gallery of Fine Arts in Ostrava.
Our partnership with media has been very important for us especially with the Czech Radio, Václav Kasík, director, Czech TV and publications Mladá fronta Dnes, HIS Voice and A2 Cultural Weekly. We are grateful to the following publications, who wrote about Ostrava Days 2007: Czech Music, Harmonie magazine, Musik Texte (Cologne), Positionen, Glissando, Hudobný život, Vlna, Art&Antiques, Respekt and Host.
Ostrava Center for New Music has offices in Ostrava and New York and employs three administrators without whom the realization of Ostrava Days would not be possible; I would like to extend my thanks to Kristýna Zelinská and Lucie Šteifová in Ostrava, and Anne Guthrie in New York. Needless to say, the whole project of Ostrava Days as we know it would not exist without the visionary work of Petr Kotík, who was helped by the diligent work of Dita Eibenová, director of Ostrava Days, who worked with us since 2001. I want to personally extend my thanks to all for whom Ostrava Days represents an important event. The preparation of the Ostrava Days 2007 Report has been, as always, an enormous project and I would like to thank all those who participated in its realization: all the lectors who edited their texts and Ryan Dohoney from Columbia University in New York who edited and prepared the material for publication, as well as Petra Drtinová in Prague, who supervised the final editing procedures. 
Executive Director
Ostrava Center for New Music
March 5, 2009
