#Press Release: Ostrava Days 2025 – Institute and Festival of Music of Today
Publikováno: 1.4.2025
Ostrava, April 1, 2025 – The Ostrava Days biennale returns in August to the unique sites of the post-industrial city, inviting composers and performers across generations from Europe and overseas to Ostrava. The festival audience can look forward to dozens of world and Czech premieres of often uncompromising music, as well as 20th-century avant-garde gems, including a concert for three orchestras. The main venue for Ostrava Days will be the modern City Campus of the University of Ostrava. The grand spaces of Triple Hall Karolina will host the international symphony orchestra ONO and the virtuoso Ostravská banda, while chamber concerts will newly move to Futureum or the National Agricultural Museum in Lower Vítkovice Area or to the still punk spaces of the former Hotel Palace. Concerts and site-specific performances will take place in the central Ostrava area daily from Thursday, August 21 to Saturday, August 30.
Compositions for three orchestras and three conductors (Phill Niblock, Bernhard Lang, Alvin Lucier, and Petr Kotík) in the giant Triple Hall will kick off the orchestral concert series (August 24). The event is preceded by a site-specific OPEN CALL by residents of the concurrent Institute for young composers and the Awakening Intonarumori program in the wagon tipper and coal mill in DOV. The curator of the experimental instruments program with guests from Germany and Italy is Petr Studený (August 21). An exploration of automatic and algorithmic composition with the Austrian Mivos Quartet is under the patronage of Charles Ames from the USA, and the program will also feature works by pioneers Lejaren Hiller and James Tenney (August 22). The international Minimarathon of Electronic Music, curated by Martin Režný, will join Ostrava Days in the spaces of Lower Vítkovice Area (August 23). Voices and instruments will resonate in the Cathedral of the Divine Savior in Ostrava (August 25) with premieres of compositions by Slavomír Hořínka, as well as the legendary composer Tania León (with her personal participation), performed by the virtuoso choir Canticum Ostrava conducted by Jurij Galatenko. Other orchestral and chamber concerts will feature the world premiere of compositions by the virtuoso accordionist Snežana Nešić, Jakub Rataj, Martin Klusák, Christian Wolff, and Alex Mincek from the USA. The Canadian saxophone quartet Quasars will arrive in Ostrava for the first time (August 27). The Long Night will take place in the temporarily vacated spaces of Palace Kampus Hub with recitals by prominent soloists and chamber ensembles: Daan Vandewalle, Nicolas Isherwood, Hana Kotková, Olivia de Prato, Charles Curtis, and others (August 29). The following day, the Occupation of a Gas Station will be prepared by Miroslav Tóth with the Czech-Slovak Dystopic Requiem Quartet. The last day of the festival will feature two orchestral concerts with premieres of compositions by Petr Bakla, Lisa Streich, and Annesley Black. The festival will conclude with a composition by Luigi Nono, performed by an extraordinary ensemble. The title is currently undisclosed.
The detailed program of Ostrava Days will be announced on April 28. Five conductors are involved in the festival: Peter Rundel, Johannes Kalitzke, Petr Kotík, Bruno Ferrandis, and Lilianna Krych.
Running concurrently with the festival is the Ostrava Days Institute for young composers (starting August 11). This year again, we have seen enormous interest in the summer school: applicants from a total of eighteen countries and four continents have applied to Ostrava. Artistic director of Ostrava Days Petr Kotík and his colleagues selected a total of thirty-five residents who will spend three weeks in Ostrava filled with joint lectures, workshops, rehearsals, and performances of their compositions, which will again be incorporated into the festival program. Thus, the differences between emerging and established artists are blurred in Ostrava. "Simply stating that Ostrava Days is a truly exceptional event does not adequately capture this beautifully crazy project. You have to come and experience at least one evening literally overflowing with music," says Czech composer Marie Nečasová, a former resident of the Institute OD. Composer Tymon Zgorzelski adds, "The Ostrava Days Institute was not only an incredible and intensive course but also a place where I met many fascinating and passionate people."
Ostrava Days is a place where musicians from all over the world meet. Bernhard Lang (Austria) and Christopher Butterfield (Canada) are names already familiar to Ostrava Days visitors, and they are composing new works for this year's festival. Swedish composer Lisa Streich, American composer of Cuban origin Tania León, and Serbian-born composer Snežana Nešić will arrive at Ostrava Days for the first time. Composer Alex Mincek has been invited as a lecturer. He first visited Ostrava Days as an emerging composer at the time of its inception in 2001 when he was among the first residents of the Institute. This year, he returns as an established artist and professor at Northwestern Bienen School of Music in the USA.
