The last concert of this year’s Exposition of New Music festival was a recital by the Italian pianist Emanuele Torquati. It was held on October 23rd at the Bedední dům in Brno and consisted of six piano pieces by contemporary composers. Czech music was represented by two compositions by Petr Bakla one of which, First Movement and … Read more
One of the events of this year’s Exposition of New Music festival (Octobre 19 – 23, Brno) was a recital by a saxophone and clarinet player Pavel Zlámal. Zlámal, who specializes in contemporary and experimental music, performed four pieces for saxophone solo from 1956 – 2016. Christian Lauba’s Hard, Simon Steen-Andersen’s De profundis and Gianti Scelsi’s Tre pezzi were followed by … Read more
It has become a custom for the Orthodox music festival Archaion Kallos to annually present new pieces by young Czech composers. Last year it was music by Jan Dušek and Petr Koronthály, this time by Slavomír Hořínka and Jan Ryant Dřízal. The chamber music concert was held on 18 October at the Gallery of the Academy … Read more
The 71st year of the Bregenzer Festspiele festival (Vorarlberg, Austria) presented a new production of Make No Noise, chamber opera by a renowned Czech composer Miroslav Srnka. Directed by Johannes Erath, it was performed on 17 and 19 August in the modern Werkstattbühne hall. Commissioned by the Bavarian State Opera, Make No Noise was written in 2011 … Read more
Held regularly from as early as 1969, the Carinthischer Sommer festival in Villach, the metropolis of the federal state of Carinthia, is one of the best known and most popular festivals in Austria. This year among those representing the contemporary music scene was the composer Ondřej Adámek (*1979), one of the festival’s Artists in Residence for 2016. … Read more
Savonlinna Opera Festival, held between July 8 and August 6 in Savonlinna in the south-east of Finland, presented From the House of the Dead (1928), the very last opera by Leoš Janáček. The premiere took place on July 23 in a curious location of the medieval Olavinlinna castle. The production is a famous one, created by David … Read more
A new production of Jenůfa by Leoš Janáček is one of the four performances played at Longborough Festival Opera this year. Held between June 9 and August 4, this festival offers what is referred to as “country house opera” experience, which means that the works are performed at remote country houses. In addition to the … Read more
The Prague-based string quartet fama Q gave a concert in a small Castillian town Quintanar de la Orden at the 23rd Festival de Música La Mancha. Among the works performed were the world premieres of String Quartet No. 2 by Petr Bakla and String Quartet by Jakub Rataj. The other pieces on the programme were written by … Read more
NODO – New Opera Days Ostrava presented a world premiere of Protracted Sinuous Movement of a Longitudinal Object , an opera by a composer and scientist Petr Cígler which was written directly for the festival. The performance took place on June 29 at the Antonín Dvořák Theatre. Petr Odo Macháček’s libretto explores the relations between a woman, a man, and a rattlesnake in a common … Read more
The opening evening of the New Opera Days Ostrava (NODO) biennale, which was held between the 27 and 30 June, offered a world premiere of William William, an opera by a composer and the festival’s artistic director Petr Kotík (*1942). The performance took place in the industrial milieu of the Hlubina coal mine. William William is, as the author … Read more
