An Orchestral Bridge Between Two Places. Essential Ostrava – New York
Publikováno: 12.11.2025
Ostrava, 12 November 2025 – The Ostrava Center for New Music (OCNH) presents another concert in its annual Essential series at DOX+, this time titled Ostrava – New York. The program features works by composers whose music often emerges along the creative axis connecting these two cities, particularly through the festivals Ostrava Days and NODO – New Opera Days Ostrava. The orchestral pieces will be performed by Prague Philharmonia under the direction of Jiří Rožeň and Petr Kotík. The orchestra, deeply rooted in the interpretation of contemporary music, continues its collaboration with OCNH through projects that link composers and performers across both continents.
ESSENTIAL OSTRAVA – NEW YORK
November 21, 2025
7:00 PM, Multifunctional Hall DOX+
Andrej Gál, violoncello
Beatriz Gaudêncio Ramos, soprano
Prague Philharmonia
Petr Kotík, conductor
Jiří Rožeň, conductor
Petr Bakla: Summer Work (2016)
Anna Heflin: Einmal ist keinmal (2025)
Richard Ayres: No. 30 (NONcerto for orchestra, cello and high soprano, 2001)
–intermission–
Petr Kotík: Fragment (1998)
Roscoe Mitchell: Nonaah for Orchestra (2023)
Alvin Lucier: Sweepers (1997)
Prague Philharmonia ranks among the leading Czech orchestras and has long been dedicated to the music of the 20th and 21st centuries. It regularly presents world premieres of new works and remains the only orchestra in the Czech Republic with an entire concert series devoted exclusively to contemporary music. In collaboration with Petr Kotík, Artistic Director of OCNH, members of Prague Philharmonia recently performed a successful program titled Kotík – Glass (January 2025) as part of their Contemporary Music (S) Series, with a follow-up project, New Beginnings – Cage, Feldman, Kotík, scheduled for 4 June 2026. The orchestra has previously collaborated with the Ostrava Center for New Music on several occasions, including the Ostrava Days festival in 2021 and the Essential concert at DOX+ the same year featuring Bernhard Lang’s work. This year’s concert at DOX+ once again combines the orchestra’s precision and experience with the distinctive and often avant-garde programming of OCNH.
The first half of the evening will be conducted by Jiří Rožeň (b. 1991) – one of the most prominent and, in the field of 20th- and 21st-century music, most accomplished conductors of the young European generation. After studies in Prague, Salzburg, Hamburg, Zurich, and Glasgow, he quickly gained international attention, becoming a finalist of the prestigious Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductor’s Awardand the Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition. He has collaborated with leading orchestras, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra,and Hallé Orchestra, and is deeply committed to the interpretation of contemporary and rarely performed repertoire, including opera. Rožeň has long been associated with the Ostrava Center for New Music—at the NODO 2022 festival, he and Petr Kotík jointly conducted Luigi Nono’s monumental stage work Prometeo. Tragedia dell’ascolto (available on the OCNM YouTube channel). A year later, he appeared with members of the Ostravská banda and S.E.M. Ensemble in concert performances in New York.
The second half of the evening will be conducted by Petr Kotík (b. 1942) – composer, conductor, and founder of the Ostrava Center for New Music, who established the musical axis Ostrava–New York 25 years ago. At DOX+, he will present his orchestral composition Fragment (1998), first performed at Lincoln Center in New York and since then one of his most frequently played works. Drawing on his extensive experience as both conductor and performer, Kotík has, over the course of his 56-year residency in the United States, built lasting bridges between composers and performers from both continents, creating projects that have significantly shaped the landscape of contemporary concert music in the Czech Republic and abroad.
One of the solo parts in Richard Ayres’ No. 30 will be performed by cellist Andrej Gál—a long-standing member of the international chamber orchestra Ostravská banda, principal cellist of the Slovak Chamber Orchestra, and a member of Veni ensemble. Gál is known for his deep commitment to the demanding repertoire of contemporary music and is admired for his precision, dedication to complex scores, passion, and virtuosity. He first performed the solo cello part in Ayres’ No. 30 (NONcerto for orchestra, cello and high soprano) at the Ostrava Days festival in 2009. Beatriz Gaudêncio Ramos, a rising Portuguese soprano, studies contemporary vocal performance at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz under Holger Falk. Her repertoire ranges from baroque to newly written works. At NODO 2024, she appeared in Pascal Dusapin’s opera Passion, where she captivated audiences with her technical assurance and refined sensitivity to the nuances of contemporary vocal expression.
The evening at DOX+ will feature six remarkably diverse orchestral works written over the past three decades, all linked by the composers’ personal connections to both Ostrava and New York. The program includes the revised Summer Work by Prague-based composer Petr Bakla, the European premiere of Anna Heflin’s Einmal ist keinmal—inspired by Milan Kundera’s novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being—and Richard Ayres’ playful, witty, and absurd No. 30 (NONcerto for orchestra, cello and high soprano). The second half of the concert features Petr Kotík’s Fragment (1998), the orchestral version of the legendary Nonaah by jazz saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell, and Alvin Lucier’s Sweepers (1997)—a work commissioned directly for Petr Kotík and his New York–based S.E.M. Ensemble. Essential Ostrava – New York thus represents the culmination of the Ostrava Center for New Music’s long-term commitment to creating an authentic platform for the composition, performance, and listening of contemporary music across continents.
Tickets: 500 CZK / 300 CZK (students, seniors). Available via GoOut.
The concert is organized by the Ostrava Center for New Music in collaboration with the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art. With financial support from the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the City of Prague, the City of Ostrava, Veronika and Libor Winkler, and Martin and Hana Vohánka.
