The Sinfonietta Dresden played my orchestral piece Water Turbine (2013) at the grand concert hall of the C.M. von Weber High Music School, during the
Beethoven Schnittpunkte V concert, along with pieces by F. Paër, Vasily Ratmansky and Beethoven’s 5th Piano Concerto. The piece was conducted by Ovanes Ambartsumian.

Together with Vasily Ratmansky we gave a music workshop for children from Ukraine, Poland and Germany, followed by the second performance of my orchestral piece Water Turbine (2013) at the Görlitzer Synagogue on March 26, 2022.

The workshop was conducted in five languages – Ukrainian, Polish, German, English and Czech.

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“Really strong and tough new recording from Lucie Vítková and James Ilgenfritz, ‘Aging’, on Infrequent Seams, for electronics and double bass. Seven pieces, somber, dark, growling and rich with complex layers and attacks, like magma flowing and encrusting. Excellent work.” Brian Olewnick

Lucie Vítková / James Ilgenfritz (bandcamp.com)

My new album Aging was just released on the Infrequent Seams, where you can find seven works for electronics and contrabass with preparations I wrote for bassist James Ilgenfritz. The various metal, wood, rubber, and fabric objects in the preparations on the bass create a specific sonic environment where the bass and electronics are inseparable.

V | Lucie Vítková / James Ilgenfritz (bandcamp.com)

The video for Aging no. V was created by Yuri Zupancicto accompany the music. The video’s myopic imagery uses darkness, light, and color to explore the passage of time and the ambiguous relationship between the concepts of closeness and emptiness.

You can read more about the album in the interview made by
a brilliant writer and composer Anna Heflin, who has interviewed me for her website Which Sinfonia:

For Lucie Vítková, Aging Brought the Melting of Melody (whichsinfonia.com)

Choral no. 13 which I composed for the Red Desert Ensemble of Katie Porter and Devin Maxwell, was released on the USA label Infrequent Seams as part of the album CHOROCHRONOS. The online visual version of the piece was created in collaboration with Dev Harlan.

I have created a new piece Vibrant Matter for the festival Vibrant Matter in Berlin at KM28. The quartet was played by Stellan Veloce, Evelyn Sailor, Martina Poznańska and myself. The composition was created through 12 graphic scores which were installed in the space and was performed on February 20, 2020.

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During the Batard Festival, I have performed with a new piece called Emergency on January 30, 2020. The piece consisted of four acts – Migration, Wild Animal, Wind and Water. I have created four graphic scores for the performance, playing synthesizer, tap shoes, sonic costumes, accordion, hichiriki, using voice, water and wind.

Wednesday, February 6th, ISSUE is thrilled to present a collaborative performance between two of America’s most renowned experimental artists, and members of ISSUE’s Advisory Council, theater director and visual artist Robert Wilson and film director, screenwriter, actor, and musician Jim Jarmusch. In a benefit concert supporting ISSUE Project Room, the two will stage a new collaboration featuring Wilson reading John Cage’s Lecture on Nothingalongside improvised musical accompaniment by Jarmusch. The evening opens with a performance from Czech composer, improviser and performer Lucie Vítková, an emerging artist who presents work with an experimental approach to accordion, hichiriki, harmonica, voice, and tap dance. 

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Photos by Cameron Kelly McLeod courtesy ISSUE Project Room (3 photos) and Dustin Dis (last photo)

SPECTACLE /ˈspek.tə.kəl/

 – an unusual or unexpected event or situation that attracts attention, interest or disapproval (Cambridge Dictionary); spectacle noun (UNUSUAL EVENT)

photo by Wolf Daniel

On a base of my previous commission for the Roulette series NEW+ADVENTUROUS in 2017, this year, I have been chosen for the Roulette Residency with a support of Jérome Foundation.

I performed my new whole evening piece Spectacle, which is one hour solo piece, where I am merging the construction and physicality of Japanese double-reed instrument hichiriki, habits around its use and making and Japanese Gagaku notation with a research on ethnomusicological methodology in a field, influence of continuity and discontinuity in Michael Jackson´s work, my environmental performance practice, dance and accordion playing.

photo by Muyassar Kurdi

There was sound, noise, music, movement and show. I made the piece to be specific to the Roulette venue and its equipment. I included scores for lights, choreography for sounds, scenes focused on things and played with water and wind.

Web.

Facebook.

On October 22nd, I performed my Piece for Accordion and Tap Shoes at the first concert from the new series Women Between Arts of curator and performer Luisa Muhr. The event took place at The New School´s Arnhold Hall, Glass Box Theater, along a butoh dancer Yokko and guest speaker and artist Shelley Hirsch.

“Women Between Arts series has been created for women who work with elements/a combination of music, theater, dance, poetry, and/or visual arts in an unconventional way. Each series feature three women artists and their work. The performances are about 15 minutes each and there is a talk-back after the performances where audience members have the opportunity to learn more about the artists, their work, and their process.

Women Between Arts has been created to provide a platform for and encourage dialogue between strong female artists of at least one or a combination of multiple fields to create interdisciplinary work.”

 Mentor/ Protégé Summer Program 2017 (Tokyo, JP)

As a hichiriki player of Gagaku ensemble of Columbia University of NYC, I was chosen to go to Tokyo for a 6-weeks residency where I will study with masters of Japanese Ancient Music. I am going to study hichiriki and dance with Sensei Hitomi Nakamura.

 

MUSIC DOMESTIC (Bánh Mì Verlag, NYC 3/2017)

My long expected album MUSIC DOMESTIC was released at the   New York based label Bánh Mì Verlag of Jack Callahan in March 2017. The label releases the music on cassettes in a limited edition of 50 and distributes them around East and West Coast and in Japan. The album of eight recordings introduce my  research on domestic instruments. I am playing instruments such as accordions, hichiriki, voice and objects together with vacuum cleaner, fans, heating, shower, toilet, kettle and washing machine. Web.

Big thanks to  Pauline Oliveros who lent me her wonderful TITANO accordion.

The album was featured in a selection of cassette focused web TABS OUT.

https://roulette.org/event/commission-lucie-vitkova-opera/

 

OPERA is a new whole evening piece for singing instrumentalists of The OPERA Ensemble. The piece features a classical form of opera filled by contemporary and experimental music materials. The OPERA is influenced by utopian thinking and its environment includes sound, visuals, fashion, lights and movement. The libretto derives from texts concerning voice by Adriana Cavarero. In the piece, these texts are translated into a Morse code and are incorporated into musical structures. The whole piece serves as a transformative space for all the performers, enhancing each individual in aria or in duet.

Lucie Vítková – composer, accordion, voice, drawings/ visuals, staging, conception; Sophie Leetmaa – harp, bowed psaltery, voice; Sydney Viles – theremin, feedback, voice; Martha Cargo – C flute, alto flute, bass flute, bansuri flute, voice; Sky Macklay – oboe, piano, feedback, voice; Carolyn Hietter – soprano saxophone,  alto saxophone, voice.