Essential Changes
Essential Changes
A concert of major changes in music.
Streaming live from Prague!
June 7th, 2021, 7:30 PM (UTC)
Multifunctional Hall DOX+, Prague
Program /
Yoshi Wada: Lip Vibrators (1973)
La Monte Young: Composition 1960 #7 (1960)
John Cage: Concert for Piano and Orchestra (1957–58)
Petr Kotík: The Plains at Gordium (2004)
Benjamin Patterson: Paper Piece (1960)
Performers /
Ivo Kahánek, piano
Irena Troupová, soprano
Ostravská banda and guests
Petr Kotík, conductor
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ABOUT PROGRAM
When Arnold Schönberg told his student John Cage that Cage’s problem with the traditional concept of composition would stand in his way like a wall, he replied: "Okay, then I'll pound my head on that wall my whole life." It was 1934 and Cage was 22 years old.
Musical composition at the beginning of the 20th century was marked by an effort to break free from the principles of the late Romanticism of the 19th century. It was not easy for the composer or the audience – the spirit of the Romantic era was taken as the essence of musical expression itself. Today, most of this "modern" music sounds like recycled takes on Brahms. The final "departure" from Romanticism did not occur until the middle of the 20th century, in compositions by John Cage, La Monte Young and others. Their compositions no longer had anything to do with the thinking and form of the previous two centuries. Their music, and the music that followed, is based more on the principles of the pre-Romantic period.
While John Cage, with his concept of silence as a source of sound, drew the line behind everything that came before, La Monte Young took another step forward. He concentrated on the tonal experience, reducing his music only to the elements absolutely necessary. In the early 1960s, Young influenced virtually the entire scene, including Cage and his followers. He is generally considered to be the founder of minimalism.
Around the same time, in the late 1950s, a group of young artists emerged who also demonstratively rejected the romantic concept of music and performance. They explored the full breadth of artistic creation (music, theater / happenings, fine arts, poetry, etc.), eventually coalescing into a movement they called FLUXUS. One of the biggest inspirations on these FLUXUS artists were a series of lectures on "Avant-garde music" that John Cage gave at The New School in New York from 1958 to 1959. Major FLUXUS artists such as Allan Kaprow, Al Hansen, George Brecht, Dick Higgins and others met there for the first time. Benjamin Patterson and Yoshi Wada were two other important representatives of FLUXUS. Patterson, along with George Maciunas and Nam Jun Paik, organized the Wiesbaden Festival in 1962, where FLUXUS was officially launched. Petr Kotík's Prague-based QUaX Ensemble performed works by Ben Patterson and La Monte Young in Czechoslovakia in the mid-1960s. Benjamin Patterson was also one of the main lectors and resident composers of the Ostrava Days Institute and Festival in 2009.
ABOUT PERFORMERS
Formed in 2005 as the resident chamber orchestra for the biennial Ostrava Days, Ostravská banda consists of instrumentalists, mostly soloists, from Europe and the US whose primary interest is the performance of contemporary music. The repertoire of Ostravská banda includes major compositions of the 20th century (John Cage, Morton Feldman, György Ligeti, Luigi Nono, Edgard Varèse, or Iannis Xenakis) and works of contemporary composers (Petr Bakla, Petr Cígler, Peter Graham, Petr Kotík, Bernhard Lang, Alvin Lucier, Olga Neuwirth, Phill Niblock, Wolfgang Rihm, Rebecca Saunders, Salvatore Sciarrino, Martin Smolka, Miroslav Srnka, or Christian Wolff). Apart from regular performances at Ostrava Days festivals, Ostravská banda tours and performs at such venues as the Paris Conservatoire, Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center (NY), Akademie der Künste in Berlin, Vredenburg Music Centre in Utrecht, Prague Spring Festival, musicadhoy in Madrid and at NODO (New Opera Days Ostrava), where it serves as the festival’s opera orchestra. Ostravská banda is renowned for its high work commitment and ability to perform even the most complex of 20thand 21st century works. Ostravská banda has also been the inspiration behind various composers’ new pieces.
Ivo Kahánek, a native of the Moravian-Silesian Region, a world-famous pianist anchored in a classical-romantic repertoire, discovers the world of avant-garde music thanks to concerts connected to the Ostrava Center for New Music. The evening, where he will perform at the John Cage's Concert for Piano and Orchestra, will be his second artistic meeting with Petr Kotík. Last December, Ivo Kahánek performed two key piano solos in the program Missed Opportunity by PKF – Prague Philharmonia: WU by Rudolf Komorous (2003) and Spontano (1964) by Petr Kotík. He entered into direct, active contact with avant-garde music for the first time. "I want to learn in this repertoire, get to know the contemporary concept of music, be open and find out what it will do to me," said Ivo Kahánek on that occasion.
A few years ago, at the pilot concert of Music in Dialog - Claudio Monteverdi and Luciano Berio at the Berlin State Opera, Irena Troupová definitely became convinced of how attracted to today's music. Since then, in addition to ongoing concerts of so-called early music, he has collaborated intensively with composers such as Marek Kopelent, Ondřej Štochl, Jan Dušek, with ensembles such as BCO, Prague Modern, Berg Orchestra and others. In addition to virtuoso Baroque compositions, her repertoire includes no less virtuoso works by composers such as György Ligeti, Jonathan Harvey, Michael van der Aa and others.
Petr Kotík is an independent composer and musician. His activities have always been guided by an effort to deal with the issues of today's music and to respond to the context and direction of art today. He is known as the founder and initiator of ensembles (eg Musica viva Pragensis, QUaX Ensemble, SEM Ensemble, Ostravská banda, ONO) and a number of projects (eg Music Festival of Extraordinary Lengths, Ostrava Days, NODO / New Opera Days Ostrava, Beyond Cage Festival) . He is the author of symphonic, chamber and opera works, and is the artistic director of the Ostrava Center for New Music. In 2017, he was awarded the Prize of the Ministry of Culture for his contribution to music.
