Prague Spring Festival: Vol.1 Blue Edition - CD

Contemporary music is an important part of the Prague Spring Festival dramaturgy. The festival takes care of this area not only by regularly including contemporary works in its programme, but also by presenting the latest works in top performance quality performed by excellent foreign ensembles and soloists specialising in contemporary music. This connects the festival to the world events in the field and at the same time becomes an international platform for Czech performers. An unnoticeable part of these activities is the support of domestic production in the form of creative commissions. The Prague Spring Festival has long played an important role here, and in recent years it has focused especially on composers of the younger and middle generation. In many cases, this creates an opportunity to bring famous foreign ensembles and Czech composers to collaborate, which is always a mutually enriching new experience and a chance for Czech composers to gain foreign artistic contacts.

On this CD we present a selection of four works commissioned and premiered by the festival in 2018-2020. Ensembles that are approached to perform at the Prague Spring Festival with an invitation to perform a Czech novelty usually want to consult the selection of the author. Therefore, it is essential to offer them composers who share a similar aesthetic outlook and whose music promises an interpretative challenge. In all of the pieces on this CD, such a harmony between the creators and performers was successfully created, resulting in unforgettable performances.

Playlist

Simon Voseček: Hypnos, intermezzo of the night for chamber orchestra / (PKF - Prague Philharmonia, dir. Ben Glassberg) / Jakub Rataj: Aether, composition for theremin, oboe, piano and string quartet / (Bennewitz Quartet and soloists) / Luboš Mrkvička: For Large Ensemble (Part D, Volume 4), composition for large instrumental ensemble (eighteen players and twenty-one instruments) / (Klangforum Wien, dir. Bas Wiegers and soloists) / Jan Ryant Dřízal: Zběsilost v srdci, composition for chamber orchestra / (Brno Contemporary Orchestra, dir. Pavel Šnajdr)