All About Jazz: Ostrava Days 2023
Publikováno: 16.10.2023
Ostrava Days happens once every two years, mostly dedicated to the well-being of new music, composed for varying sizes of ensembles, right up to a fully-bloated orchestra. Sometimes, though, works will be penned for mere solo performers. It has always had extended ears for jazz, improvisation and electronic musics, as well as rock'n'roll being an increasingly strong influence on moderne composition, nowadays, injecting electric guitars into several ensembles.
The actual music festival runs for ten days, although it's preceded by an 'institute' section, a hotbed for rehearsal, discussion, development, lectures and seminars. Many composers and musicians are in residence for the entire 21-day span. Your scribe rode in on the industrially scenic four-hour train from Vienna, set for a climactic six days in Ostrava, this old coal-mining city, quite close to the Polish border.
Ostrava Days has an ongoing Czech-American character, as artistic director Petr Kotík dwells in NYC, and many of the festival's players and composers arrive from across the Atlantic. The Czech Republic contingent is also, of course, very significant, and there are many visitors from other European lands, and beyond.
Martin Longley, All About Jazz / read the full report here >>>
