Sixth Biennial OSTRAVA DAYS Festival Held Aug 26-Sept 3

Ostrava Center for New Music (Ostrava, Czech Republic) and its founder/artistic director Petr Kotík (New York City) are pleased to announce the sixth installment of OSTRAVA DAYS - a unique festival of new and experimental music, taking place in the city of Ostrava from August 26th to September 3rd, 2011. The festival is the culmination of the biennial Ostrava Days Institute, one of the largest international summer programs for new music. Unlike any other contemporary summer music program, OSTRAVA DAYS' focus is on compositions for large-scale ensembles, including symphony orchestras, with a strong emphasis on the American repertoire, giving it a distinct place on the European music scene. This year, the festival brings to Ostrava a number of internationally renowned ensembles and soloists and features a vibrant mix of established and emerging composers in 19 concerts, including 95 compositions and 25 world premieres.

"The lack of opportunities for performances of new orchestral works inhibits composers from composing for large ensembles. Yet, it often is orchestral works that define a composer's contribution to music. The idea of Ostrava Days emerged at the end of 1990s, as the result of performances with the Janá?ek Philharmonic that included large-scale compositions, such as 103 by John Cage and Gruppen by Karlheinz Stockhausen. The unparalleled resources of Ostrava, the newly built Janá?ek Conservatory, half the size of Juilliard School, the 106-piece symphony orchestra and the large Philharmonic hall with flexible seating -- all inspired the idea of organizing an institute and festival with a focus on working with orchestra." -- Petr Kotik, founder and artistic director of Ostrava Days

"You will not hear large orchestra works by Feldman (or Cage for that matter) in New York but in Ostrava." -- Christian Wolff, a resident composer at Ostrava Days, 2001-2009

In addition to two resident orchestras - the word-class 106-piece Janá?ek Philharmonic Orchestra and the 35-piece international chamber ensemble, Ostravská banda - this year's festival will welcome guest ensembles: JACK Quartet (New York), the prestigious Quasars Ensemble (Bratislava), the electric guitar quartet ZWERM (Antwerp), the 35-piece choir Canticum Ostrava (Ostrava), the 40-year S.E.M. Ensemble (New York), O.B.SQ (international), ONCE Trio (international), and Nea Vasile & Taraful de la Marsa, the acclaimed Gypsy band from southern Romania. It will also feature soloists from around the world, including pianists Daan Vandewalle (Ghent); Joseph Kubera (U.S.), John Tilbury (London), and violinists Hana Kotková (Lugano) and Conrad Harris (New York); and singers Salome Kammer (Munich), Katalin Károlyi (Paris), and Thomas Buckner (New York), among others.

Highlights for the OSTRAVA DAYS 2011 include:

* The world premieres of Phill Niblock's 23-minute orchestral work with video, Baobab (2011), performed by the Janá?ek Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Petr Kotík, and Larry Polansky's new composition for Canticum Ostrava, directed by choir master Jurij Galatenko.
* JACK Quartet performing Wolfgang Rihm's "Concerto" Dithyrambe with Ostravská banda, an all-Xenakis presentation, and works by Elliott Sharp and the late Romanian-French composer Horatiu Radulescu.
* Two of Morton Feldman's rarely performed large-scale compositions: Piano and Orchestra, featuring Feldman's longtime collaborators, pianist Joseph Kubera and conductor Petr Kotík, with the Janá?ek Philharmonic Orchestra; and Feldman's first work for symphony orchestra Structures for Orchestra (1960-1962), also featuring the Janá?ek Philharmonic Orchestra.
* Rolf Riehm's monumental Wer sind diese Kinder for large orchestra (divided into 3 groups), electronics, and piano, performed by soloist Daan Vandewalle (Ghent) with Petr Kotík directing the Janá?ek Philharmonic Orchestra.
* Major orchestral pieces by Carola Bauckholt, Petr Kotík, Martin Smolka, and Galina Ustvolskaya; chamber orchestra works by John Cage, Ivan Buffa, Ji?í Kade?ábek, Berhnard Lang, and György Ligeti; and works by Charles Ames, Robert Ashley, Pierre Boulez, and Lejaren Hiller.
* Cornelius Cardew's The Tiger's Mind (1967) performed by Ostrava Days Ensemble and directed by British pianist John Tilbury.
* Violinist Hana Kotková (Lugano) performing Pierre Boulez's multichannel electroacoustic work, Anthémes II (1998).
* Soprano Katalin Károlyi (Paris) in Salvatore Sciarinno's chamber opera, Infiniti Nero (1998).
* Mezzo-soprano Salome Kammer (Munich) performing works by Carola Bauckholt, John Cage and Kurt Schwitters.
* The prestigious 13-member Quasars Ensemble playing music from Bratislava
* The debut of ONCE Trio, consisting of Conrad Harris (violin, New York), Arne Deforce (cello, Brussels) and Daan Vandewalle (piano, Ghent) and performing Morton Feldman's 76-minute Trio (1980).
* Works by emerging composers/former Ostrava Days residents Carolyn Chen, Alex Mincek, Kate Soper, Pablo Chin, John Lelly and James Saunders, as well as 30 resident-students of Ostrava Days 2011.
* A 10-hour mini-marathon of electronic music, including works by Robert Ashley, Larry Polansky and Matthew Ostrowski (U.S.), among others.
* Large-scale outdoor sound installation by Gordon Monahan (Toronto)
* Nea Vasile & Taraful de la Marsa performing traditional folk/gypsy music from Southern Romania at Ostrava's Club Parník.

Ostrava Days Festival is part of the international summer program for new music, Ostrava Days Institute, running August 15 - September 3. Breathtaking in its length and scope, the three-week Institute offers 30 young composers from around the world a packed schedule of workshops, lectures, and rehearsals in an environment of close collaboration with large-scale ensembles and leading personalities in contemporary music. This year, the young composers are coming from 12 countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Great Britain, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Poland, Slovakia, South Korea, and the U.S., and their compositions will be performed alongside the works of internationally renowned composers during the weeklong Festival. The working language at Ostrava Days is English.

Ostrava Days began in 2001, and has since grown into an internationally celebrated festival praised for its "consistently high quality" (The Wire) and for its "enormous richness of ideas...absolutely non-dogmatic" (Musical America). Since its inception, the festival has devoted a large portion of its programming to major American composers and musicians, making the event unlike any other in Europe. Over the years, OSTRAVA DAYS has featured more than 170 composers and over 150 world premieres. It is one of the largest new music events in Central and Eastern Europe.

For a complete schedule of performances, visit: http://www.newmusicostrava.cz/en/ostrava-days-festival/program
For more information on the festival itself: http://www.newmusicostrava.cz/en/ostrava-center-for-new-music

Ostrava Days is made possible by the generous support from the City of Ostrava, Peter Kajnar, Mayor, Zden?k Bakala Foundation, New World Resources, Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, Art Mentor Foundation, Lucerne, Visegrad Fund, Czech-German Fund For The Future, SUNGWOO HITECH, s.r.o., Embassy of the United States Prague, Janá?ek Conservatory in Ostrava, Mercure hotel Ostrava Center, Maria Hotel, Art Hotel Prague, BossCan3C, EuroAWK, Epona, Auto Heller, SmVaK, Moravská Ostrava a P?ívoz, Ostrava information servise, and Rengl. Media partners include Czech Radio Ostrava, Czech Radio Vltava, Czech Television, Harmonie Magazine (Prague), HisVoice Magazine (Prague), as well as Respekt Weekly (Prague), A2 Cultural Magazine (Prague), WIRE Magazine (London), MusikTexte Magazine (Cologne), Host Magazine (Brno), Positionen Magazine (Mühlenbeck), Hudobný život Magazine (Bratislava) and Vlna Magazine (Bratislava).

OSTRAVA DAYS 2011
August 26-September 3, 2011

Orchestras:
Janá?ek Philharmonic Orchestra
Ostravská banda (international)

Ensembles:
Canticum Ostrava, Jurij Galatenko, Choir Master (Ostrava)
Zwerm with Guest Musicians (Antwerp)
Quasars Ensemble (Bratislava)
JACK Quartet (New York)
O.B.SQ (international)
ONCE Trio (international)
S.E.M. Ensemble
Nea Vasile & Taraful de la Marsa (Romania)

Conductors:
Johannes Kalitzke (Wien)
Roland Kluttig (Berlin)
Petr Kotík (New York / Ostrava)
Ond?ej Vrabec (Prague)

Composers / Lectors:
Charles Ames (Buffalo, N.Y. USA)
Carola Bauckholt (Cologne)
Petr Kotík (Ostrava)
Bernhard Lang (Vienna)
Gordon Monahan, (Toronto, Canada)
Phill Niblock, (New York)
Larry Polansky (Hanover, USA)
Rolf Riehm (Frankfurt am Main)
Martin Smolka (Prague)

Guests Artists and Soloits:
Katalin Károlyi, voice (Paris)
Salome Kammer, voice, actor (Munich)
Ond?ej Vrabec, horn (Prague)
Karel Dohnal, clarinet (Prague)
Rhodri Davies, harp (Newcastle Upon Tyne)
Daan Vandewalle, piano (Ghent)
Joseph Kubera, piano (New York)
John Tilbury, piano / lector (London)
Conrad Harris, violin (New York)
Hana Kotková, violin (Lugano)
Arne Deforce, cello (Ghent)
John Eckhardt, contrabass (Hamburg)
Daniel Ploeger, performer (Berlin)
Thomas Buckner, Voice (New York)
Fabrizio Rosso, electronics (Villadeati/Melide)
Ji?í Král, tuba (Ostrava)
Karel Šín, tuba (Ostrava)
Peter Graham, composer (Brno)
Alexandr Vovk, Voice (Ostrava)

Locations:
Philharmonic Hall, Ostrava
Janá?ek Conservatory in Ostrava
St. Wenceslas Church, Ostrava
Club Parník, Ostrava
Gallery of Fine Arts in Ostrava
Coal Mine Michal, Ostrava

 

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