#Press Release: Music outside the halls. Ostrava Days unfold in a coal tower, a kitchen, and beyond
Publikováno: 3.7.2025
Ostrava, July 3, 2025 – Over the past 25 years, Ostrava Days has established itself as a festival known for its focus on orchestral music and large-scale formats. Equally strong, however, is its programming designed for unconventional venues, often drawing on the post-industrial atmosphere of Ostrava. This August, parts of the festival will take place in new locations – the former coal tippler turned creative center FUTUREUM, and the expansive National Museum of Agriculture, both located in the Lower Vítkovice industrial area. The marathon Long Night at the end of the festival will, for the first and likely the last time, occupy Ostrava’s own version of The Kitchen – a nickname referencing the legendary New York venue, here used for the spacious kitchen of the former Hotel PALACE in the city center. Across these spaces, audiences can experience everything from futuristic intonarumori and site-specific performances to electronic music and an all-night chamber music marathon focused primarily on 21st-century works. A commitment to the genius loci and a desire to hear music differently are constants of the festival, rooted in the unique environment of what was once a steel city.
Ostrava Days actively seeks venues that allow for music with unconventional instrumentation, specific acoustic or technical requirements, or works that would otherwise remain on the margins of concert life. Industrial halls and the occupation of non-concert spaces are not just alternatives to traditional concert halls – they are often the very condition for realizing programming that would be impossible elsewhere. And let’s be honest – sometimes it’s a necessity: Ostrava still lacks a proper concert hall or facilities for large orchestras.
Introducing the venues:
FUTUREUM, once a coal tippler and milling facility in the Lower Vítkovice area, has recently been transformed for cultural and educational activities. The site also offers inviting outdoor spaces for visitors to relax between intense performances. On Thursday, August 21, FUTUREUM will host the festival’s opening event, Starting Line, which will unfold in three parts. The opening block will feature site-specific works by young resident composers of the Ostrava Days Institute – including a quartet involving the audience (Requiem for a Civilian by Ján Podracký) and strain for alto flute by Pranav Ranjit, exploring the tension, effort, and physical strain shared by performer and listener alike. The next section will present a solo program by flutist Erik Drescher, including Against Nature, a piece developed in close collaboration with Peter Ablinger, who passed away earlier this year.
The evening concludes next door in the National Museum of Agriculture, with a program dedicated to intonarumori – the noise instruments of Italian Futurism designed by painter and musician Luigi Russolo in the early 20th century. His 1913 manifesto The Art of Noises called for the creation of a new orchestra composed entirely of noise intoners that would reflect the sounds of the modern city and the industrial age. After decades of obscurity, this utopian vision is being revived. For the first time, Ostrava Days will host EFNI (Ensemble of Futurist Noise Intoners), an international collective of performers and composers Luciano Chessa, Anna Clementi, Werner Durand, and Jan Kolář, who also reconstructed the instruments. Following performances in Berlin, Prague, and at Lithuania’s Druskomanija Festival, EFNI will present new works by both Czech and international composers, including Milan Guštar, Peter Ablinger, and Phill Niblock. The intonarumori return to Ostrava one year after playing a central role in the opera Russolo’s Bitter End, presented at the NODO / New Opera Days Ostrava festival.
The festival returns to FUTUREUM and the National Museum of Agriculture on Saturday, August 23 for a Minimarathon of Electronic Music. Spanning four distinct sound environments – including a ceramic sound system and the Berlin-made BUSS system, optimized for extreme frequencies – the program will feature more than fifteen performances. Audiences can expect a wide array of approaches, from improvisations to composed works for unconventional instruments, including 3D printers and tape recorders. Artists such as Kazuhisa Uchihashi, Augustė Vickunaitė, Richard Grimm, and Jean-Philippe Gross will perform. A piece by Gerard Lebik will recall Phill Niblock’s first performance in Ostrava in 2009, held in the former VI Central Control Room of the Blast Furnaces. Site-specificity will also be central to Non-places, a unique artistic intervention by composer Miroslav Tóth, featuring a quartet performing directly in Ostrava’s public spaces.
On Friday, August 29, the festival continues its Long Night tradition – an eight-hour marathon of contemporary chamber music, this year taking place in the currently vacant Hotel PALACE awaiting renovation and in the spaces of the City Campus of the University of Ostrava. This concert format offers listeners the chance to immerse themselves in a broad spectrum of contemporary works performed by diverse ensembles – from Ostravská banda to soloists from Europe and the U.S., as well as instrumental duos. Highlights include the Voice & Piano program with bass-baritone Nicholas Isherwood and pianist Daan Vandewalle, featuring works by Frederic Rzewski and John Cage. The Only Violin set will include pieces by Salvatore Sciarrino and Miroslav Srnka, performed by Hana Kotková, joined by Olivia de Prato for a work by Luigi Nono. Cellist Charles Curtis, a long-time collaborator of La Monte Young, will perform Naldjorlak, a composition by French composer Éliane Radigue, as part of the Only Cello program. The evening offers a rare opportunity to hear music in the temporary Ostrava “The Kitchen” and enjoy refreshments in the open-air courtyard of the Kampus Palace student residence, part of the former Hotel PALACE complex.
