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

Ostrava Ostrava (; ; ) is a city in the north-east of the Czech Republic and the capital of the Moravian-Silesian Region. It has about 283,000 inhabitants. It lies from the border with Poland, at the confluences of four rivers: Oder, Opava (river), Opa ...

The Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

. 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. 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 Radio Prague International () is the official international broadcasting station of the Czech Republic. Broadcasting first began on 31 August 1936 near the spa town of Poděbrady. Radio Prague broadcasts in six languages: English, German, Fr ...

. 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 also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...

''. 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 indeterminacy in music, a development associated with the experimental New York School o ...

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

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 bega ...

Iannis Xenakis Giannis Klearchou Xenakis (also spelled for professional purposes as Yannis or Iannis Xenakis; , ; 29 May 1922 – 4 February 2001) was a Romanian-born Greek-French avant-garde composer, music theorist, architect, performance director and enginee ...

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 and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...

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 music, avant-garde composers in the latter half of the ...

Edgard Varese Edgard may refer to the following: *Edgard, Louisiana *Edgard Félix Pierre Jacobs, Belgian comic book creator and writer *Edgard Lévy, French Jewish Resistance fighter *Edgard Varèse, French composer See also

*Eadgar (disambiguation) *Edgar ...

Galina Ustvolskaya Galina Ivanovna Ustvolskaya ( ) (17 June 1919 – 22 December 2006), was a Russian composer of classical music. Known as 'the lady with the hammer', her music has been described as demanding "everything from the performer", uncompromising in h ...

, Christian Wolff,

Alvin Lucier Alvin Augustus Lucier Jr. (May 14, 1931 – December 1, 2021) was an American experimental composer and sound artist. A long-time music professor at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, Lucier was a member of the influential Sonic Ar ...

, Petr Kotík,

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 Instruments'' ...

Phill Niblock Phillip Earl Niblock (October 2, 1933 – January 8, 2024) was an American composer, filmmaker, and videographer. In 1985, he was appointed director of Experimental Intermedia,Alan Licht, ''Common Tones: Selected Interviews with Artists and Music ...

Elliott Sharp Elliott Sharp (born March 1, 1951) is an American contemporary classical music, contemporary classical composer, multi-instrumentalist, performer, author, and visual artist. A central figure in the Avant-garde music, avant-garde and experimenta ...

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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 Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up fr ...

Kaija Saariaho Kaija Anneli Saariaho (; ; 14 October 1952 – 2 June 2023) was a Finnish composer based in Paris, France. During the course of her career, Saariaho received commissions from the Lincoln Center for the Kronos Quartet and from IRCAM for the En ...

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 Europe, Central and Eastern Europe which published its first weekly issue on October 1, 1991. It published a printed edition weekly until July 2013, when ...

'', 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 aesth ...

".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 continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

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Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. 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 ensembles

Resident ensembles of Ostrava Days are the Ostrava New Orchestra (symphony orchestra), 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 (; 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 Moravian-Silesian Region. The NDM has ...

, 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