Essential Ostrava – New York

The Ostrava Center for New Music presents another concert in its essential series at DOX+. This time, the program takes as its starting point the axis Ostrava – New York, a connection that has brought together composers and performers from around the world for over a quarter of a century and continues to attract audiences both at home and abroad. Now, the Prague audience will also witness this dialogue of the transatlantic avant-garde. Alvin Lucier, together with Petr Kotík, stood at the very beginnings of the Ostrava Days festival (more than twenty-five years ago, the idea of Ostrava Days was developed in New York by composers P. Kotík, A. Lucier, Earle Brown, and Christian Wolff). The festival has long been home to Roscoe Mitchell and Petr Bakla, while the youngest generation of composers is represented by the returning Anna Heflin. Richard Ayres is one of the artists who has always gone “against the current,” and for more than fifteen years he has been bringing his works to life in Ostrava.

„Artworks do not come into being on their own. The place that enables their creation always remains connected to them. For music of our time, that place over the past quarter century has been Ostrava in connection with New York. The concert program presents just a small glimpse of the work of composers whose pieces would not exist in their current form without the Ostrava–New York axis.“ – Petr Kotík

Andrej Gál, violoncello
Beatriz Gaudêncio Ramos, soprano
Prague Philharmonia
Petr Kotík, conductor
Jiří Rožeň, conductor

Programme:
Petr Bakla Summer Work (2016)
Anna Heflin Einmal ist keinmal (2025)
Richard Ayres No. 30 (NONcerto for orchestra, cello and high soprano, 2001)
–intermission–
Petr Kotík Fragment (1998)
Roscoe Mitchell Nonaah for Orchestra (2023)
Alvin Lucier Sweepers (1997)