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Newer than new

Once again, Ostrava becomes a modern music Mecca
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By Frank Kuznik
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
August 22nd, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Pianist Heather O'Donnell was one of the performers at the 2005 edition.
COURTESY PHOTO
Composers Lucier, left, and Kotík.
Ostrava Days

When: Aug. 26–Sept. 1
Where: Ostrava
Tickets: 50–100 Kč for individual concerts, 350 Kč for a festival pass, available at the venues
For a complete schedule, check www.ocnmh.cz

Peter Kotík was in a taxicab from Ruzyně Airport a couple weeks ago when the driver asked him where he was going.
“Ostrava,” Kotík told him.
The driver got a pained look on his face. “My biggest nightmares end up in Ostrava,” he said.
It was a classic moment of one man’s heaven being another man’s hell. For Kotík, Ostrava has been a dream come true, a place where he can stage one of the most remarkable music events of its kind. Every other year starting in 2001, Kotík has assembled a group of world-class composers and 36 students who spend three weeks together discussing, studying, composing and performing new music. The payoff for the public is a series of 15 concerts, beginning this year Aug. 26, showcasing seldom-heard work by masters of modern music such as Stockhausen, Feldman, Xenakis, Andriessen and Nono.
This year’s lineup is outstanding, starting with a composers’ roster that includes Alvin Lucier, Kaija Saariaho, Christian Wolff and Czech emigré Rudolf Komorous (via videoconference). For a session on the “Early 1960s in Prague,” local luminaries Marek Kopelent and Miroslav Srnka will be making the trek to Ostrava to give firsthand accounts of what it was like trying to write radical music under the strictures of communist rule.
An international set of conductors and solo performers will appear with visiting chamber ensembles from Bratislava, Ankara, Berlin and New York City. There are two orchestras: the Ostrava-based Janáček Philharmonic, and Ostravaská banda, an amalgam of European and American players who came together during the last Ostrava Days and adopted a name that conveys the spirit of the festival.
“The word ‘banda’ is a bit pejorative, more like ‘gang’ than ‘band,’ ” Kotík says with a smile. “It fits the reputation of the city.”
Ostrava may be a tough industrial town in north Moravia to most people, but Kotík has found an openness there, not to mention incredible accommodations for his festival, that he says would be impossible in Prague.
“The mayor supports us, the head of the music school gives us his facilities for a song, and we get enthusiastic audiences for three-hour concerts that end at midnight,” Kotík enthuses. “When I first proposed this idea in Prague, everyone laughed and thought I was out of my mind. People there are against anything that doesn’t correspond with their narrow ideas.”
Kotík should know. Born in Prague in 1942 (his father was the painter Jan Kotík), he studied flute at the conservatory here and composition in Vienna, founding two music ensembles in Prague before moving to the United States in 1969. After a stint at the Center for Creative and Performing Arts in Buffalo, New York, he moved to New York City, where he composes and runs his own modern music ensemble, the SEM Orchestra. In May of this year, Kotík conducted a joint performance by the SEM Orchestra and Ostrava banda at Carnegie Hall.
The goal of Ostrava Days is different from most summer music programs. “Our aim is to create an informal working community where one can learn something,” Kotík says. Thus the three-week duration of the program, which gives students time to work individually with the composers, and with an orchestra that will play their compositions (26 student works are scheduled to be performed this year).
“Music schools have a great handicap in their isolation from reality,” Kotík believes. “Our students have a chance to work with leading figures in contemporary music, and observe how a piece of music is put together, from the uncertain first rehearsals to the convincing final performance.”
Of that there should be plenty at this year’s festival. The musical highlights include a performance of Feldman’s opera Neither; an hour-long piano piece by Komorous titled Wu; Ligeti’s Concert for Violin and Orchestra; and a version of Cage’s Concert for Piano and Orchestra with two soloists and two orchestras.
New music doesn’t get much newer, or more exhilarating, than this. Take a ride next week and see what has drawn top-level talent from around the world to a city of dreams and nightmares in Moravia.

Frank Kuznik can be reached at fkuznik@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (22/08/2007):

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