New Music Forum Ljubljana,
1 - 10 December, 2020
9 April, 2021

Body Clock

Featured composer/curator: Ondřej Adámek

Performers:
Shigeko Hata (soprano), Neofonía,
Drumartica Percussion Duo, ROYA saxophone quartet,
Slowind Quintet and others
Ondřej Adamék & Steven Loy (conductors)

By presenting a condensed festival, the New Music Forum seeks to continue the tradition developed over a period of two decades by the Slowind Wind Quintet with its Slowind Festival. This continuity is reflected in a commitment to the most contemporary music and the presentation of music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries that has not yet found its echo in Slovenia, with a particular focus on the music of the last two decades.

It was this approach that led to the selection of the first composer in focus or curator of the festival: Ondřej Adámek (1979) is a representative of the youngest generation of composers who are nonetheless firmly established internationally. He comes from the Czech Republic, and so was born beyond the Iron Curtain, but in his creativity he is a strong member of a connected Europe, without political and aesthetic borders. Adámek’s view is attractive for Slovenian music culture, which is contextually embedded in similar frameworks, as it could be compared to Slovenian composers of the same generation (V. Žuraj, N. Šenk, M. Bonin, P. Strahovnik).

Adámek has designed the festival around the programming principle Body Clock, which conceals the essential elements of his own compositional poetics: on the one hand, physicality and tactility and, on the other, a strong dependence on the temporal component, on rhythmic pulsation. Interestingly, both of these musical components also strongly mark the ubiquitous popular music. Thus, Adámek’s selection can be understood as a broader social commentary.

The New Music Forum presents five concerts, each of which attempts to shed light on the central theme from a new perspective. The first concert focuses on “Trance”, a special state of body and mind that transcends the sense of time. The concert will culminate in a performance of Andriessen’s Workers Union, a central “essay” on freedom and unity. The second concert brings electroacoustic music under the title “Icy Hot”, an oxymoron indicating contrasts and flirting with genres of the music of noise and obsessive rhythmic pulsation. The third concert focuses on various quartets (string quartet, percussion quartet, saxophone quartet, two pianos with two percussionists), while the title “Pulsating Bodies” emphasises the connection between rhythmic pulse and bodily reaction. The fourth concert, “Body Patterns”, is a late night concert and most directly presents the theme of the entire cycle: the works will be performed on the bodies of percussionists, while a “silent” composition for solo conductor will also be presented. The final concert, “Karakuri”, will be the most extensive event in terms of duration and complexity, with works for a larger ensemble, while the concert and festival will end with a composition by the composer in focus and curator of the festival, Ondřej Adámek, focusing on a traditional Japanese mechanised puppet.

With the exception of a work by Vinko Globokar, all the compositions of the concert cycle will be performed for the first time in Slovenia, including new works commissioned from Slovenian composers Petra Strahovnik, Urška Pompe and Mauricio Valdés san Emiterio. In addition to the commissioned works, other Slovenian compositions (by Larisa Vrhunc, Vinko Globokar and Neville Hall) will also be performed at each concert. Among the works by foreign composers, particular mention should be made of international classics of the last three decades by O. Adámek, S. Steen Andersen, L. Andriessen, F. Lévy, G. Ligeti, V. Globokar, G. Aperghis and M. Smolka.

SCHEDULE

Concert 1

1 December, 2020, Digital Edition

Trans

8pm
Pre-concert talk with Petra Strahovnik and Slowind quintet (moderator: Gregor Pompe)
Available here: https://uni-lj-si.zoom.us/j/99913670564
Meeting ID: 999 1367 0564

8.30pm

Kryštof Mařatka
Hypnozy [2006]

Luis Fernando Rizo-Salom
Quatre Pantomimes pour six [2013]

Petra Strahovnik
Bistvo (Essence) [World Premiere, a Ljubljana New Music Forum 2020 Commission]
Louis Andriessen
Workers Union [1975]

Slowind quintet, Neofonía, Steven Loy (conductor)

 

Concert 2

4 December, 2020, Digital Edition

Icy Hot

8pm
Pre-concert talk with Mauricio Valdés san Emeterio (moderator: Steven Loy)
Available here: https://uni-lj-si.zoom.us/j/93119709589
Meeting ID: 931 1970 9589

8.30pm

Simon Løffler
[2012]

Joël Mérah
Prajna…dans un sommeil profond… [2003]

Ashley Fure
Shiver Lung 2 [2017]

Mauricio Valdés san Emeterio
Sodoben vžig [World Premiere, a Ljubljana New Music Forum 2020 Commission]

Drumartica Percussion Duo, Špela Mastnak, Jure Robek, Brina Kren, Mauricio Valdés san Emeterio

 

Concert 3

7 December, 2020,  Digital Edition

Pulsating Bodies

8pm
Pre-concert talk with Fabien Lévy and Yves Chauris (moderator: Larisa Vrhunc)
Available here: https://uni-lj-si.zoom.us/j/96016009763
Meeting ID: 960 1600 9763

8.30pm

Francesco Filidei
Silence = Death (Democracy) [2013]
Fabien Lévy
Durch [1998]
Yves Chauris
I hear bodies, String Quartet No. 1 [2010]
Larisa Vrhunc
Drobtine časa [World Premiere, Roya Saxophone Quartet Commission]
Carola Bauckholt
Zugvögel [2011/2012]

Drumartica Percussion Duo, Duo Dendrocopos, ROYA Saxophone Quartet, Dissonance String quartet, Neofonía, Steven Loy (conductor)

 

Concert 4

10 December, 2020, Digital Edition

Body patterns

8pm
Pre-concert talk with Neville Hall (moderator: Steven Loy)
Available here: https://uni-lj-si.zoom.us/j/95259206175
Meeting ID: 952 5920 6175

8.30pm

Neville Hall
et j’entendis des voix [2016]

François Sarhan
Homework II: In the Garage [2008-2011]
Clara Iannotta

3 sur 5 [2012-2013]
Vinko Globokar

?Corporel [1984]
Georges Aperghis

Retrouvailles [2010]

Špela Mastnak, Luka Juhart, Duo Dendrocopos, Manuel Alcaraz Clemente

 

Concert 5

9 April, 2021, Digital Edition

Sinuous Voices

7.30pm  Pre-concert talk with Urška Pompe (moderator: Gregor Pompe)

8pm

Thierry De Mey
Silence Must Be![2002]
Simon Steen Andersen
Amid [2004]
Marko Nikodijević
musicbox/selbstportrait mit ligeti und strawinsky (und messiaen ist auch dabei) [2001/2003/rev. 2006]
Urška Pompe
fingers of rain [2013/rev. 2016]
Ondřej Adámek
Sinuous Voices[2004/2009/rev. 2017]

Jan Čibej, Neofonía, Leonhard Garms (conductor)

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been obliged to make some changes to the originally listed program.

 

 

Ondřej Adámek, composer in focus / curator of the New Music Forum 2020 festival

Ondřej Adámek was born in 1979 in Prague. He has received commissions for orchestral, choir, ensemble, and vocal works, as well as music for instruments and electronics from prestigious ensembles and festivals of contemporary music in Europe (for example, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Klangforum Wien, Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra, Diotima string quartet, Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain, Agora festival, Donaueschingen festival, Witten festival, Warsaw Automn, Les Musiques festival – Marseille…).

Adámek seeks out special playing techniques for classical instruments, creates new original instruments, with his vast knowledge of new possibilities for classical instruments, obtains a very specific sound colour that, together with a powerful rhythmic and solid formal architecture, creates very personal music with strong dramatic aspect.


Adámek graduated from the composition department of the Academy of Music in Prague in 2004 and from the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris in 2007.

His music was awarded the Synthèse Prize (Bourges 2002), Metamorphose (Brussels 2002, 2004), First Prize of Hungarian Radio, the Brandenburg Biennale prize (2006), the Prix Hervé-Dugardin – SACEM (2009), the Grand Prix Tansman (Lodz 2010), the Prix George Enesco 2011, and others. In 2014-2015 is Adamek fellow of Academie de France, Villa Medici in Rome.

Ondřej Adámek is also conductor and conducts his opera Alles Klappt in the festival Biennale Munich, also his opera Seven Stones in the opera festival in Aix-en-Provence. He conducts Ensemble Moderne, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Kammerensemble Neue Musik, Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain, Oslo Sinfonetta, Ensemble 2E2M, Ensemble Prague Modern, Vocal Ensemble Accentus – Aix 21, Chorwerk Ruhr, Ensemble Ilinx, Ensemble of Orchestre National de Lille. He creates and conducts his own vocal ensemble NESEVEN combined with percussion ensemble Eklekto (Switzerland) and prepares touring in Europe in 2019-2020.

ondrejadamek.com