Musica Metallicita. Celebrating Art’s Birthday with a Metallic Echo
Czech Radio joined again this year the global celebrations of ART'S BIRTHDAY as one of almost twenty public-service institutions across Europe. The celebrations was held under the auspices of a group of radio scriptwriters and producers of Euroradio Ars Acustica.
The birthday concert and celebration held on Monday 17 January in the courtyard of Alfred theatre was broadcasted by Czech Radio Vltava.
During the two-hour event we offered not only an audio connection with a number of places across Europe through the Euroradio satellite network, but also and especially musical performances in which various musicians sounded – electronically or acoustically – the most diverse metallic objects or instruments using the vibrations of metal. The programme is based on a fictitious future in which metals become an inaccessible commodity in the everyday life:
“The international company Global Metallicity has announced that it has successfully demetallized the world, i.e. removed any and all electronic musical instruments as a hangover from the era of unrestrained wastage of strategic commodities. Metal quota for electromobility and consumer electronics has been therefore successfully met for this year, achieving a metallic balance…” These are the echoes of memories of the future from which the programme of Art’s Birthday was cast. It hints at a future in which a thing like a PA system will only be available upon a special permission of the Ministry of Industry, brass instruments will only be available on black market risking heavy fines and the sound of a true harpsichord will only be reserved to the richest one percent. Welcome to the world in which linear economy and the dictate of economic growth brought a plastic end to the metallicity of music, transforming it into a mere memory and mechanical reproduction. According to this metalphysical logic, the programme shall be divided into three sections for sheet metals, wires and springs. Thus, you will have the opportunity to hark back to a fabricated future without metals in music.
Featuring in the event and bringing their acoustic presents were Monika Knoblochová and Michal Nejtek, Barbora Tomášková (SK), Stanislav Abraham, Jan Trojan, Tomáš Pernický and Alex Švamberk. The event was presented by Petra Knut Kultová.
Programme:
- Knoblochová & Nejtek: Cinéma préparé (fragment musical)
The baroque echoes of Monika Knoblochová’s prepared harpsichord marry with the electronic sounds by Michal Nejtek. Musical fragments from a large-scale audio-visual composition “Cinéma préparé” performed in 2021 together with visual artist Jan Komárek. - Barbora Tomášková: Concert for sound objects, live electronic music and voice
The Slovak composer’s world of sounds is built around authorial sound objects, which blend with live electronic music to form hybrid musical instruments. - Jan Trojan: Vibrations, percussions, echoes, touches, resonances and couplings for sounded sheet metal No. 1
A sheet of steel is used as a musical instrument primarily based on back-coupling in order to obtain tonal structure and resonance of a material object in space. - Stanislav Abraham: Metalíza
Ambient harmonic surfaces formed on two metallic objects. The beautiful sound of an eighty-centimetre gong is supported by drone generated by modular synthesizer and by the melodic UFO-like Sundrum handpan transformed by digital effects. - Alex Švamberk: Rite of Springs
The rite of spring? But without Stravinsky. Consecration of springs? But only as an inspiration. This is the Rite of (Coil) Springs. A tribute to classic industrial music in a pocketsize form. All sounds are formed on springs, some of which are tunable. The springs are sampled and echoed. - Tomáš Pernický: Dea Ferrea
Authorial synthesis of scrap metal and electronic music distilled into the essence of the divine resonance of hard steel. Debuting during the concert, the solo project was created specifically for the celebration of Art’s Birthday 2022. - Slow Radio
The mujRozhlas.cz audio portal joined the celebration, too, by launching a unique project called Slow Radio. It offers the ever-larger display of sound moments such as “Ticho v divadle” (Silence in a Theatre), “Svítání v Mnichovicích” (Sunrise in Mnichovice), “Les v Kersku” (A Forest in Kersko) or Korejská ulice (A Korean Street).