FESTIVAL SCHEDULE

“The performance site is an important source of inspiration for us. Before each performance, we research the space`s history, architecture and location as well as other qualities and subsequently include these aspects into our composition,” says performer Tereza Kerle about the site-specific component. The uniqueness of each production is based on a thorough exploration of the performance space which takes into account its acoustic-semantic characteristics and the musical-performance components of improvisation are subsequently tailored to the given space. The musicians chose improvisation for its playfulness and ability to react to exterior spatial conditions as well as to stimuli from other players.

“What fascinates me about improvisation is the fact that I have to listen and respond at the same time. It brings me to a state of heightened awareness, unlike the experience one has while performing written music,” adds Anna Friedländer, voice performer and the concept co-author. This approach allows the musicians to create a thrilling and unique site-specific project and invite their audiences for a truly unusual experience.

Topos  Performers Follow

Tereza Kerle (Prague) is performer, dancer, dance-teacher, choreographer and percussionist Tereza with a degree in site-specific performance at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. Her fields of interest are performance and dance. She also express herself by visual installations, spoken word, text, and rhythm, mostly with a site specific focus. The main themes of her work are transformation of consciousness, archetypes, myths, rituals, walking and wandering. She is the member of Topos Kolektiv and founding member of Cesta rytmu company, Zóna and Marimba Mama. SITE.

Annabelle Plum (Prague)
is a singer and a vocal performer. She uses her, more than three-octave, vocal range in contemporary music, improvisation and jazz. Plum studied Theatre Arts at Brown University (USA) and Performance Design and Practice at Central St Martins (UK). She studied extended vocal techniques pioneered by Roy Hart as a personal student of Jonathan Hart Makwaia in France and USA. She lives In Prague since 2009, where she creates her own work and teaches experimental vocal techniques. From 2013 to 2015, she taught a course as guest lecturer at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (DAMU). Plum is one of the founders of Topos Kolektiv. SITE

Martin Klusák (Prague)
is a composer and sound artist based in Prague, Czech Republic, and currently is an MA degree student of composition at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. Having started as a film score composer and sound designer, he gradually became focused on concert and experimental works. Symbolism and inspiration in film speech are often the common aspects of his compositions. So far he has cooperated with major Czech musical formations and productions (BERG new music orchestra, Prague Philharmonic Choir, Czech Radio, etc.) and his pieces have been performed in the UK, France, Germany, and other European countries, as well as in the United States. His projects suceeded in a range of competitions, such as selection of Phonurgia Nova Awards 2016 in Paris, first prizes of the Prague Philharmonic Choir’s competition (Prague, 2012) and of “Generace” - competition of the Janáček May Festival for young composers of the Visegrad countries (Ostrava, 2014), awards for the best Czech electroacoustic compositions in the Musica Nova Competition (Prague, 2011, 2014), the audience prize in the Berg Orchestra’s competition (Prague, 2013), and other. Films with his original scores have been screened at major film festivals around the world, such as most recently at the Quinzaine des réalizateurs in Cannes (Happy End, dir. Jan Saska, 2016). Currently he researches the audiovisual counterpoint and possible links and crossovers between musical composition and film. He is also a co-founder of Topos Kolektiv - a project that researches site-specific approaches to music. In August 2016, the Electronmusikstudion (EMS) in Stockholm was having Martin on an artistic residency, and in September 2016 his project Topos Kolektiv was invited to perform at the Neu Now festival for emerging artists in Amsterdam. SITE

Festival Concept

See David & Echofluxx Ensemble's E18  Performance

See Michael Karman's E18  Performance

Maureen Koelsch (Minneapolis)
is a spirit on the wind. Dance, theater, writing and collage are stirred, swirled and reconfigured by her creative imagination. Originally trained in the grounded modern dance of Mary Wigman via Margret Dietz her work also breathes the influence of other modern masters, improvisation, body mind centering, butoh, trapeze. She has explored, expanded, overturned and exploded the performance venue setting a trajectory from formal theatrical stage to alternative spaces, outdoor landscapes, roving choreography, intimate spaces and back to alternative small venues. (Dancing to the River was a moving of grief into action with community and colleagues just days after 9/11; Peace Project was a 3-part daylong rededication to peace in different sites with adults, children, artists and onlookers in an interactive public art work; To Have Come This Far gathered movement phases in Loring Park and set them to dance scores across the Armajani bridge connecting the park to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.) (As a performer she recently performed in Merce Cunningham's Field Dances as a component of the exhibition of work by Merce Cunningham/John Cage at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis MN.) As an Imaginarian she develops and directs workshops that construct emotionally thoughtful creative environments for artistic experimentation. (Maps: Pathways & Passages for the Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis MN; Twist & Shout, the new needle arts for Pelham Art Center, Pelham NY; Animals & Architecture for working Artist Retreat, Mount Vernon ME & Lanesboro MN). (Art Ingenuity Lab, Gravity & Levity, This Haunting, The Art of Surrender reimagining release resistance resilience, Incubate-Edit, Home Exile) listen w/the ear of a cricket, Wake Me When I'm Ready and Skinned: stories told & untold-hand head heart are her most recent workshops. She has a long and thriving creative relationship with David Means and Mary Garvie. (Together they have kicked up a lot of dust devils and created provocative and poignant work.) MORE

Mary Garvie (St Paul)
sings and makes fine pottery. She was a founding member of the Nobles eXperimental interMedia Group (Minnesota) and performed in several dance-theater works by Georgia Stephens (Minnesota). She has also been involved in collaborations with choreographer Maureen Koelsch, composer David Means, writers Jon Spayde and Michael Karman, and has performed with the Echofluxx Ensemble since 2016.

FILM FEST ARTISTS

Einike Leppik (Estonia)
is an composer and audiovisual artist living in Tallinn and teaching audiovisual composition at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre. Leppik graduated from Antwerp Royal Academy of Arts (MA in Printmaking) in 2011 and later proceeded her studies at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre in Audiovisual Composition (BA 2014). In 2017 she received her Master’s degree in Classical Composition. During her studies she followed internships at (supervised by Riccardo Vaglini). Leppik has taken part in different masterclasses and her music and installations has been presented and performed in numerous festivals such as Estonian Music Days (Estonia), Summersound (Finland), Segnali (Italy), Videoformes (France), eviMus and InSonic (Germany). Leppik has been writing acoustic and electroacoustic music for different ensembles and solo instruments, her special interest is combining the field of sound with other forms of art. She has been composing also for short movies, dance performances, installations and her own audiovisual works. Her main interests in music is its synaesthetic quality, the emotional sensibility and the poetical experience of sound. SITE

Charles Norman Mason (Miami)
won the 2005-2006 Samuel Barber Rome Prize Fellowship in composition. Mason’s other awards include International Society for Bassists Composition Competition, Premi Internacional de Composició Musical Ciutat de Tarragona Orchestra Music prize, National Endowment of the Arts Artist Fellowship, Dale Warland Singers Commission Prize, BMI Young Composers Award, and Bourges Electro-Acoustic Composition Competition. His music has been performed throughout the world including the Aspen Summer Music Festival, Foro Internacional de Música Nueva in Mexico, and new music festivals in Prague, Bucharest, Bulgaria, and Sao Paulo. Dr. Mason is associate professor of composition at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and director of the Electronic Music studio. He is also executive director of Living Music Foundation, Inc. SITE

Dan Senn (Prague-Wisconsin)
is an intermedia artist working in music composition, kinetic sound sculpture, experimental and documentary film. He has been a professor of music and art in the United States and Australia. Dan travels internationally as a lecturer, performer and installation artist living in Prague where he directs the Echofluxx festivals, and Watertown, Wisconsin, the USA, with his partner- collaborator, Caroline Senn. Dan's work moves freely between expressive extremes and languages depending upon the aesthetic joust at hand. He studied music (composition, French Horn, conducting) and art (ceramics) at the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse with Truman Daniel Hayes, Leonard Stach and William Estes, and at the University of Illinois, Urbana (composition), with Salvatore Martirano, Ben Johnston and Herbert Brün. His music is published by Smith Publications of Baltimore. His work for "Any Three Treble Instruments In the Same Key," called "Rivus," was released in 2015 by Ravello Records, along with works by Scotto and Cage and performed by the McCormick Percussion Group. In 2017 his work "Four Psams Modal" was premiered by the Kuhn Choir of Prague, and his "Seven for Piano" was premiered in February 2017 by Caroline Senn in Wisconsin. Dan founded Newsense-Intermedium of Tacoma, Washington, and cofounded Roulette Intermedium of New York City. He is the artistic director of Echofluxx which he cofounded with Anja Kaufmann in 2011.

 

ENSEMBLE TERRIBLE
 

Drei Familienstücke by Michal Nejtek video
Cartography #8 (premiere) by Gilberto Agostinho video
Les Cris de Brésil (premiere) by Bruno Cunho video
ConFashion (premiere) by Petr Hora video
Epilog by Ondřej Štochl video

Review by Lucia Maloveská

Zabelov Roman (Belarus)
was born into a musical family in a small village Zhilich where he graduated local music school playing the accordion under the guidance of his father. In 2010 he graduated "Playing the Accordion" at the Prague State Conservatory and in parallel began to study composition. Since 2014, he studied composition at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague led by Slavomíra Hořinka.He is an active musician/accordionist, working in the band Zabelov Group. He is also the author of theater music and music for films.

Ondřej Štochl (Prague)
studied the viola (1989 – 1995) and the composition (1992 – 1996) at the conservatoire in Prague. He continued his studies under prof. Marek Kopelent at the Music Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts (1997 – 2003). During his studies, he took part in various courses for the composers – under these lectors: Zygmunt Krauze, Paul Méfano, Vinko Globokar, Osvaldas Balakauskas or Guy Reibel. Simultaneously, he was getting a lot of experience in performing contemporary music. His works include chamber and orchestral pieces, sometimes with vocal or electronic element. He is artistic leader and viola player of the „Ensemble Konvergence“ and chairman of the composers group of the same name. He works on its projects as a dramaturgist of its concerts series and they take part in festivals of (not only) contemporary music (ENH Brno 2004, Forfest Kroměříž 2002, Mélos-Étos Bratislava 2003, Unerhörte Musik Berlin 2007, Prague premieres 2008, Prague spring 2009…). As a composer, he also took part in ISCM World music days 2007 in Hong-Kong as a representative of the Czech republic. Among interprets of his compositions (abroad and in the Czech republic) are various chamber groups (for example Luxembourg Sinfonietta, Ensemble Bern Modern, Moens Ensemble), soloists (Petr Nouzovský – violoncello, Karel Dohnal – clarinet, Cécille Boiffin – vibraphone, Iris Gerber or David Kalhous – piano) and orchestras (Moravian philharmony Olomouc, Prague chamber orchestra) Ondřej will also have a performance of his work "Epilog" on the concert. SITE.

Michael JERMÁŘ (Prague)
studies at the Prague Conservatory (prof. Pavel Fiedler, Pavel Škrna). In July 2014 he accepted the invitation of excellent French saxophonist Philippe Portejoie to study in his class at the Conservatoire ŕ Rayonnement Régional de Paris, the Paris Conservatory, where he stays 2014-2016 studying both schools simultaneously. In 2016 Michael begins his Bachelor studies at the University of Ostrava (prof. Zbigniew Kaleta, PhD.), in the same year he graduates at Prague Conservatory playing Jacques Ibert’s Concertino da camera accompanied by the Conservatory orchestra and giving a Graduation recital. In academic year 2017/2018 he does his Erasmus+ Programme at the Uniwersytet Muzyczny Fryderyka Chopina (UMFC - Chopin University) in Warsaw, where prof. dr. hab. Paweł Gusnar and Mgr. Pablo Sánchez-Escariche Gasch lead him. In 2014 Michael recorded the saxophone episode of “Filharmonici na ulici,” a show by the Czech Television, and premiered “Three pieces for alto saxophone solo” by Hanuš Gočár. In 2018/2019 he is looking forward to premiere “BACH’erevko,” a piece written and dedicated to him by world-famous French composer François Rossé. Under the baton of flutist Philippe Bernold, Michael performed Ravel’s Boléro with the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava and collaborated with the Czech Philharmonic Student Orchestra as well as the Orchestre Symphonique du CRR de Paris. He is a member of Ensemble Terrible, a contemporary project that works under the Academy of Performing Arts Prague, and plays in the Chopin University Bigband. SITE

ENSEMBLE TERRIBLE
COMPOSERS

Gilberto dos Santos Agostinho Filho was born in Osasco, Brazil, in 1986. After composing only as a hobby during his studies of physics,i n 2006 he decided to fully dedicate himself to music. Agostinho holds a masters degree by the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, where he studied under the supervision of Luboš Mrkvička. In 2017, he started his PhD studies at City, University of London, under the supervision of Newton Armstrong on the subject of musical mapping. Agostinho has composed works for several formations, from short piano pieces to orchestral works, as well as electroacoustic pieces. He employs algorithmic techniques to produce both instrumental and electroacoustic compositions. The main aspect of his compositional technique is the use of probabilistic and generative methods to automatically produce complete pieces of music by computer programs, be they instrumental or electroacoustic. In the case of instrumental music, these computer programs output scores which are ready to be performed. Gilberto's's work on this concert, a first performance, is "Cartography #8". YouTube

Petr Hora (Prague)
was born in Chrudim and studied organ and composition at the Conservatory of Teplice. Then he continued his studies in composition with Hanuš Bartoň and Luboš Mrkvička at the Music faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. Petr's work on this concert will receive its first performance and is called "ConFashion."

See ET POSTER

ECHOFLUXX ENSEMBLE

FILM FEST ARTISTS

Tom Baker (Seattle)
has been active as a composer, performer, and producer in the Seattle new-music scene since arriving in 1994. He is the artistic director of the Seattle Composers’ Salon, co-founder of the Seattle EXperimental Opera (SEXO), an advisory board member of the Washington Composers’ Forum, founder of the new-music recording label Present Sounds Recordings, and is currently professor of composition at Cornish College of the Arts. Tom has received awards and grants for his work from many organizations, including Meet The Composer, the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, 4Culture, and Artist Trust. He has been an artist-in-residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida and the Montalvo Arts Center in California. His works have been performed throughout the United States, in Canada and in Europe. Tom is also active as a performer and improviser, specializing in fretless guitar and live-electronics. He has recorded seven albums, including two solo records. Triptet, a trio with Michael Monhart and Greg Campbell, recently released its third album, Figure in the Carpet, on Brooklyn-based Engine Records. Tom has worked with many innovative musicians, including Stuart Dempster, William O. Smith, Christian Asplund, Chinary Ung, Ellen Fullman, Matana Roberts, and Henry Threadgill. SITE

Corrie Befort (Seattle)
is a dance artist working between visual design, choreography, and video to translate sensation-based ideas into performances, films and scores.  Her primary workspace is the body, in constant synesthetic interplay with images, color and sound. She has been presented/commissioned internationally, creating award-winning works for stage and screen since 2000. Her dance films have twice been commissioned by The Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter and have won awards in Los Angeles (Dance Camera West) and Portugal (InShadow). She has been in collaboration with composer Tom Baker since 2002, co-directs performance companies LIMITS with Jason E Anderson, Befort&Graczyk with Beth Graczyk (NYC) and Salt Horse (2008-2015). She designs scenography for these projects and for artists including Cherdonna, Mark Haim, Mary Sheldon Scott and Deborah Hay soloists. Recently Befort created performance scores for Seattle’s Henry Art Museum within Ann Hamilton’s the common SENSE, LIMITS’ dance film A Rendering screened in the CROSSROADS Festival at the San Francisco MoMA and she is currently dancing in Katherine Cook’s quartet necessary and sufficient at CoCA, Seattle. Befort is a Dance for Parkinson's master teacher, has developed dance classes for people in recovery from homelessness, addiction and trauma through Path with Art and teaches dance filmmaking at Cornish College. SITE

Gonzalo Pérez (Uruguay)
is a guitarist and composer born in Montevideo, Uruguay. He attended the "Escuela Universitaria de Música, Universidad de la República" (Uruguayan State University) obtaining a degree in Composition in 2011. He now works teaching Composition and Analysis at the same university. Other studies involve: Architecture, Communication Sciences, Music Teaching, Classical Guitar and Piano. Since 2002, performs guitar in local countryside music and tango groups, also working in the musical arrangements. Since 2004, creates original music for different instrumental settings, for electronics, and for collective projects, including contemporary dance, video, theater and plastic art.

Steven Whiteley (USA)
is a New York-based/nomadic composer and sound artist working with sound, performance, and intermedia. He is interested in exploring the perception of the self and embodied and fragmented consciousnesses in the context of internet culture under late capitalism in the age of the Anthropocene. His works have been awarded and featured at such festivals as the Dublin Music Current Festival, MA/IN Matera Intermedia Festival in Italy, Montreal Contemporary Music Lab (MCML), National Student Electronic Music Event (NSEME) at the University of North Texas, Los Angeles Emerging Artist's Festival (LAEAF), the MATA Festival in NYC and others. He was composer in residence and is a fellow at I-Park Inc. in East Haddam, CT and has been active as a performer in the New York and Montreal DIY music scenes, having toured Europe, the UK, Canada, and the USA with different projects. He holds a Bachelor of Music in Music Composition and World Religions Studies from McGill University where he studied composition under Melissa Hui and Philippe Leroux. SITE