Ostrava Days is a three-week-long exposition of contemporary classical music that takes place biennially in the city of

Ostrava Ostrava (; pl, Ostrawa; german: Ostrau ) is a city in the north-east of the Czech Republic, and the capital of the Moravian-Silesian Region. It has about 280,000 inhabitants. It lies from the border with Poland, at the confluences of four riv ...

The Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The Cz ...

. The last season (2013) ran from August 12 to August 31, 2013. The event is considered to be one of the largest of its type in the world. Ostrava Days exposition is organized by the Ostrava Center for New Music (OCNM), an organization founded in 2000 by a Czech composer living in New York

Petr Kotík Petr Kotik (surname originally Kotík) (born January 27, 1942, in Prague) is a composer, conductor and flutist living in New York City. He was educated in Europe (Prague Conservatory, graduated 1961; Vienna Music Academy, graduated 1966; AMU Prag ...

. The institution was established solely for the purpose of organizing Ostrava Days, an event that consists of two parts—a summer institute and festival.Bakla, Petr (April 2007)
Ostrava Days 2007: "Institute and festival of new music"
''Czech Music''. Retrieved 25 April 2014.Asiedu, Dita (5 August 2005)
"Contemporary musician Petr Kotik shares experiences at Ostrava Days"
Radio Prague. Retrieved 25 April 2014.Nepil, Hannah (6 September 2011)
"Ostrava Days 2011, Ostrava, Czech Republic"
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Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Ni ...

''. Retrieved 25 April 2014.

Mission

The mission of the institute as well as of the festival is described by its founder Petr Kotík as follows. Ostrava Days "give composers, musicians and musicologists an opportunity to work with leading representatives of contemporary music". It is "a working and learning environment focused on orchestral composition".

Programming

The festival strives to achieve originality and dissociation from usual and rather mainstream type of programing often observed in the program brochures of other major festivals of classical music in The Czech Republic. Classics of new music are systematically offered along the side of numerous premieres of new works. Festival programs have included major works by composers such as:

Morton Feldman Morton Feldman (January 12, 1926 – September 3, 1987) was an American composer. A major figure in 20th-century classical music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School ...

, John Cage,

Luigi Nono Luigi Nono (; 29 January 1924 – 8 May 1990) was an Italian avant-garde composer of classical music. Biography Early years Nono, born in Venice, was a member of a wealthy artistic family; his grandfather was a notable painter. Nono beg ...

Iannis Xenakis Giannis Klearchou Xenakis (also spelled for professional purposes as Yannis or Iannis Xenakis; el, Γιάννης "Ιωάννης" Κλέαρχου Ξενάκης, ; 29 May 1922 – 4 February 2001) was a Romanian-born Greek-French avant-garde c ...

Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th and early 21st-century ...

György Ligeti György Sándor Ligeti (; ; 28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was a Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as "one of the most important avant-garde composers in the latter half of the twentieth century ...

Edgard Varese Edgard may refer to the following: * Edgard, Louisiana *Edgard Félix Pierre Jacobs *Edgard Varèse See also *Eadgar (disambiguation) *Edgar (disambiguation) *Edgardo Edgardo is an Italian-language form of the name Edgar. It may refer to: * Edg ...

Galina Ustvolskaya Galina Ivanovna Ustvolskaya (russian: Гали́на Ива́новна Уство́льская , 17 June 1919 – 22 December 2006), was a Russian composer of classical music. Early years Born in Petrograd, Ustvolskaya studied from 1937 to 1 ...

, Christian Wolff, Alvin Lucier,

Martin Smolka Martin Smolka (born 11 August 1959 in Prague) is a contemporary Czech composer of classical music. Works ;1983 * ''Slzy (Tears)''; ;1985-1988 : ''Hudba hudbička'' (''Music Sweet Music'') for ensemble; ;1988 * ''Music for Retuned Instrument ...

Phill Niblock Phill Niblock (born October 2, 1933 in Anderson, Indiana) is an American composer, filmmaker, videographer, and director of Experimental Intermedia,Alan Licht, ''Common Tones: Selected Interviews with Artists and Musicians 1995-2020'', Blank Forms ...

Elliott Sharp Elliott Sharp (born March 1, 1951) is an American contemporary classical composer, multi-instrumentalist, and performer. A central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City since the late 1970s, Sharp has released ...

Bernhard Lang Bernhard Lang (born 24 February 1957 Linz, Austria) is an Austrian composer, improviser and programmer of musical patches and applications. His work can be described as contemporary classical, with roots, however, in various genres such as 20th-cent ...

Rebecca Saunders Rebecca Saunders (born 19 December 1967) is a London-born composer who lives and works freelance in Berlin. In a 2017 ''Classic Voice'' poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000, Saunders' compositions received the third highest total ...

, Philip Glass,

Kaija Saariaho Kaija Anneli Saariaho (; ; born 14 October 1952) is a Finnish composer based in Paris, France. During the course of her career, Saariaho has received commissions from the Lincoln Center for the Kronos Quartet and from IRCAM for the Ensemble Inte ...

Timeline

The exposition regularly lasts for three weeks in August. Two weeks are devoted to the institute which events are open to official participants only. Over the course of these two weeks the participating composers, musicians and musicologists interact with each other by means of attending a number of lectures, seminars, and presentations. They also compose and practice pieces to be presented during the final week of the forum. The exposition opens to the public during its third week's festival. The festival offers a large number of concerts which program selected compositions by resident students, lecturers, guests, and others. Frank Kuznik, editor-in-chief and culture editor of ''

The Prague Post ''The Prague Post'' was an English language newspaper covering the Czech Republic and Central and Eastern Europe which published its first weekly issue on October 1, 1991. It published a printed edition weekly until July 2013, when it dropped the ...

'', described Ostrava Days in his blog ''Cultured Cleveland'' as a "gathering of students, players and composers modeled after

Darmstadt School Darmstadt School refers to a group of composers who were associated with the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music (Darmstädter Ferienkurse) from the early 1950s to the early 1960s in Darmstadt, Germany, and who shared some aesthe ...

".Kuznik, Frank (29 September 2013)
"Season Openers"
. Cultured Cleveland .Retrieved 25 April 2014.

Admission and attendance

Students and lecturers

Attendance of the institute as well as the festival is international and in the past included artists from

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

, North America,

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

and Australia. Students are chosen based on evaluation of no more than three scores and audio samples submitted to the assembly of lectors for each given year. Approximately 35 students are accepted for a season.

Resident orchestras and ensembles

Resident orchestras and ensembles of Ostrava Days are

Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra The Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra (''Janáčkova filharmonie Ostrava'') is a Czech orchestra based in Ostrava, Czech Republic. Named after composer Leoš Janáček, the orchestra performs its concerts at the City of Ostrava Cultural Centre. Hi ...

(Ostrava), Ostravská Banda (international chamber ensemble), Canticum Ostrava (choir), and Krulik Quartet (string quartet).

Venues

The events of the Ostrava Days exposition take place in multiple venues in the city, including Philharmonic Hall of the City of Ostrava, Janáček Conservatory Ostrava, Multifunctional Auditorium GONG,

National Moravian-Silesian Theatre The National Moravian-Silesian Theatre ( cs, Národní divadlo moravskoslezské; NDM) is a professional theatre company based in Ostrava in the Czech Republic. It is one of ten opera houses in the country, and the largest theatre company in the ...

, Coal Mine Michal Hall, St. Wenceslas Church, Parník Club, Gallery of Fine Arts in Ostrava.

References

External links

*{{Official, http://www.newmusicostrava.cz/en/ostrava-days/ *Choate, Andrew. "Ostrava Days 2009: Warm Cylindrical Hearing
Part 1 (November 2009)
an
Part 2 (December 2009)
''Facsimile Magazine'' Classical music festivals in the Czech Republic Contemporary classical music festivals Ostrava 2000 establishments in the Czech Republic