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Zvokotok

A cycle of contemporary composed music

Zvokotok focuses on contemporary composed music. It is defined by the research of compositional procedures and often linked to music technology. It encourages and merges unique sound languages and performative innovativeness and moves contemporary compositions into new spatial and concert forms.
Zvokotok connects established institutional spaces of artistic activity with premises of the dynamic action of NGOs. It implements and maintains unburdened space of dialogue and overcome the artificial distinction between areas and venues of artistic activity.

The program in 2023 was conceived by Nina Dragičević.

In 2023, in the Zvokotok cycle, we will expand the concepts and scope of the sonic: we will not stop at reducing the auditory as exclusively musical, nor will we intervene only in sonority as omnipresence, but we will expand the object of sound's origin. We will put at the center the sonic potential of cultural, one might even say civilizational, products such as the text (and therefore, of course, intertextuality) and the visual. Sound emanates from text. The 20th and then the 21st century placed textual and visual (graphic) composition in the field between the extreme poles of composition and 'pure' improvisation, shaking up the relationship between composer and performer. If musical notation assumed that composer and performer would understand each other as precisely as possible, with new approaches to the articulation of musical ideas this is no longer only unlikely, but above all not necessary. On the one hand: a renunciation of commandment. On the other: a renunciation of following the commandment. But also, a renunciation of breaking ties in the name of independence. A renunciation of atomism. A renunciation of totality. A release. We will argue that textual and/or graphic composition is the site of humanist contact par excellence. And we need that.

The series consists of five concert evenings, i.e., performances of at least five compositions. Since textual and visual composition widens the field of interpretation - so much so that it allows (even encourages) the performer to play a compositional role - we can say that with each performance a new composition is created, but not entirely, since it is at the same time an interpretation of a specific composition. Therefore, where possible, in each concert, a particular composition (its textual or visual notation) will be performed several times, but each time with a different performing ensemble, i.e., each time anew. In a sense, we will be observing not only the performance, but the creation of a (different) composition each time. The emergence of a non-authoritarian system of communication.


The program was conceived by:
2014 - Nina Prešiček, Bojana Šaljić Podešva, Luka Juhart
2015 - Nina Prešiček, Bojana Šaljić Podešva, Luka Juhart
2016 - Tomaž Grom
2017 - Jonas Kocher
2018 - Tomaž Grom
2019 - Primož Trdan
2020 - Mauricio Valdés San Emeterio 
2021 - Luka T. Zagoričnik
2022 - Steven Loy  

17.12.2022

Zvokotok: Miha Haas, Marjan Peternel, Nika Tkalec, Jasmina Raković

ZVOKOTOK
17. December ob 20:00, Palača Kazina, Ljubljana
 
Program:
1. Julius Eastman: Evil Nigger
2. Milko Lazar: 4 Pianos
3. Julius Eastman: Gay Guerrilla
 
Pianists:
Miha Haas, Marjan Peternel, Nika Tkalec, Jasmina Raković
 
Program Zvokotoka je v letu 2022 zasnoval Steven Loy.
 
Produkction: Zavod Sploh
Partners: Japan Piano Center and Akademija za glasbo Ljubljana
 
History can be cruel to composers who were perhaps successful during in their lifetimes; it can also enact justice for those who’s unique creativity was not understood in their own time. On Dec. 17, listeners in Slovenia will get to hear live for the first time music by one of the most unjustly ignored composers of the last 100 years. 

Julius Eastman was a composer, pianist, vocalist, and performance artist active in New York City in the 1970s and 1980s. He was also an out gay man and African-American in a white-dominated field. His very distinctive music can be categorized as “post-minimalism”, but at a time when Minimalism itself was just getting started. In fact, he was one of the first composers to combine classical elements and expression with the directness of pop music, notating it in such a way as to give the performers total freedom in shaping the material, in order to create what he called “organic music”. Despite relative fame, especially as a vocalist, early in his career, Eastman died homeless and penniless at age 49 in 1990. 

Eastman’s music is unlike anything you have ever heard before: powerful, direct, ambitious, emotionally complex and absolutely unforgettable. It is admired by both classical musicians and pop musicians and everyone in between. It is music that effortlessly and successfully erases genre boundaries and goes straight to the core of what music can mean.

 On Dec. 17, in the newly renovated Kazina Palača of the Ljubljana Academy of Music, Zvokotok presents two of Eastman’s major works –- Evil Nigger and Gay Guerrilla – for the first time in Slovenia. Performed on 4 pianos by Miha Haas, Marjan Peternel, Nika Tkalec and Jasmina Raković, the concert also features 4 Pianos by Milko Lazar. You won’t want to miss this rare opportunity to hear Eastman’s music live in Ljubljana.
 
More information about Eastman: Julius Eastman - Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Eastman
 

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