Led by their artistic director Pavel Šnajdr, the Brno Contemporary Orchestra on 31 January in Besední dům, Brno, presented the first of the two concerts commemorating and celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of Czechoslovakia. It was named FROM CZECHOSLOVAKIA and the programme consisted of new pieces by Petr Bakla, Luboš Mrkvička and Marián Lejava … Read more
The penultimate concert of this year’s MusicOlomouc contemporary music festival belonged to the Phace Ensemble (Austria). On October 9 in the Corpus Christi Chapel of the Art Centre of Palacký University, they performed five pieces including a premiere by Petr Bakla. Last Piece (Mostly stepwise) for clarinet/bass clarinet, violoncello and piano was written on the festival’s commission. The programme … Read more
The fifth day of the Ostrava Days presented a concert of the festival’s residential orchestra Ostravská banda held at the Triple Hall Karolina. Led by four different conductors – Petr Kotík, Joseph Trafton, Bruno Ferrandis and Carl Bettendorf – the ensemble played a program consisting of nine compositions, none of which was more than 15 years old. One of them … Read more
As would be expected, the 10 days and 22 concerts of the 9th year of the contemporary music biennale Ostrava days included several Czech premieres. From those by Czech authors they were first of all the chamber Nothing is Free by Petr Cígler, September by Petr Bakla and The Long Sentence II by Michal Rataj. All of them were performed during … Read more
As a teaser for the upcoming Ostrava Days festival, Ostrava witnessed a recital by the German cellist and Ostravská banda member Matthias Lorenz. It was hosted by the PLATO Ostrava art organization which, at the moment, has its residence in the former Bauhaus hobby market; and it was here, on May 15, that Lorenz performed Nomos Alpha … Read more
As a herald of this year’s Ostrava Days festival, a special concert took place on 25th April in the completely sold out Bohemian National Hall of the Czech Center New York. Together with The Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble, the festival’s director Petr Kotík presented a unique program consisting of works by composers of AACM (Association for the Advancement of … Read more
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
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
