Seminar Shadow’s first album Heatwave for two pianos was released at the Dear Life Records Label in March 2023.

Heatwave | Seminar Shadow (bandcamp.com)

Lucie Vítková and Teerapat Parmongkol met in May 2021 in New York to improvise and record music, using the instrumentation of an electric guitar (Parnmongkol) and synthesizer (KORG Volca Bass), harmonica, hichiriki, and voice (Vítková). Since then, they have performed under the name Seminar Shadow, a duet whirling in a seminar (sonic) shadow, dancing themselves in continuous inconsistency between being and becoming.

Their music is influenced by experimental music, noise, jazz, rock, metal, and folk music (Czech, Isan/Morlam). The music varies according to the places they play, and they have performed at Wonderville (Uneven Geographies), Sunview Luncheonette, Living Gallery (Undisclosed Locations), Bop Dubu (Nolja), Nha Minh, Scholes Street Studio (Infrequent Seams Festival) and Roulette Intermedium (Pieces from Darkness).

‘HEATWAVE’ (for two pianos), is Seminar Shadow’s first album where they portray their relationship through acoustic instruments. It was recorded on two baby grand pianos (Steinway and Baldwin) at the Red Hook Oversea Recording studio, a beautiful and evocative space which has since ceased operation, during one of the hottest days of the blistering NYC heatwave in August of 2022. These two expansive and cutting statements, Luring (22 min) and Heatwave (24 min), display an intimately developed and potently ontological approach to improvisation and interplay.

“Liveness as in a self-organization in action can’t detach or distinguish from skeleton of memory. A wave of heat is rinsing out inseparably within this heat, where the liveliness is revealing itself as a part of motion and movement that lives through this instinctual response to the environment around it. This recording cultivates and captures the „heat“ response to vibration that has been embodied for over a century of existence.

Within these units of time, we only experience this bit of memory that exists inside our bones of instinct, which heats up our sensory perception and activates that feeling of yearning for the infinite. It is unstoppable, but the desire is genuine, which makes sense if we are listening.”

We have created a music video for our first single Luring, excerpt

Seminar Shadow – Luring (excerpt) (Official Music Video) – YouTube

Lucie Vítková presents their recent solo and collaborative projects that work with darkness as a theme or situation. The program starts with an installation called Opaque (2022) made in collaboration with artist Xiaoer Liu. The live opening set, starting at 8pm, is called Earth Eater (2022), Vítková’s solo performance as a cyborgean creature, which will be followed by the Earth Eater movie, created in collaboration with Drew Wesely. The last performance features a new piece Darkness by a duo project Seminar Shadow of Lucie Vítková and Teerapat Parnmongkol.

Lucie Vítková: Pieces from Darkness – Roulette

I was awarded funding from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) to write my new opera and premiere it at the Roulette Intermedium in the Fall 2023.

Two volumes of music during my Fall Tour 2022, including festivals and concerts in Czechia, Slovakia, Austria and Germany.

Religion is a new album made in collaboration with composer and performer Leo Chang, released by the experimental music label TripTicks Tapes.

Religion | Leo Chang & Lucie Vítková | Tripticks Tapes (bandcamp.com)

Leo Chang – VOCALNORI (amplified gongs via voice) and piri
Lucie Vítková – accordion, synth, hichiriki, harmonica, voice, objects

The music is accompanied by a poem by Teerapat Parnmongkol:

Double reeds soar over the mountain

What do we expect from poetry?

Reality is an organize
in the explanation of itself
No Objectively rely upon beyond space

:.. …absurdity is real the truth

Experience alone is a danger of representation

The ambivalent of visibility
That’s the life we live in

Paradox as a breakfast
Of

Unknown eclipsed

What do you expect from the world?

Dogmatic
Systematic
Romantic
Poetic
Justice
crisis
Dramatic

Epistemology of what?

Nothing don’t/can ring the gong of memories

Everything is and what is not

Plural as it’s… venerable as it can free

Crying in lossless faith

Live and die in the sea of love

My piece for large ensemble Dream of Others (2020-21) was premiered on May 28th, 2022, at the Prague Spring Festival 2022 by Klangforum Wien. The event was hosted by the DOX+ Hall in Prague and on the program were pieces by Czech and international composers such as Olga Neuwirth, Ian Mikyska, Adrián Demoč, Konstantin Heuer and Jakub Rataj.

Klangforum Wien II. — Pražské jaro (festival.cz)

My Ph.D. dissertation was published as a book and the first print sold out!!

In the Compositional Techniques of Christian Wolff and Social Aspects in Music, I share research on Christian Wolff’s music in the social-political context. The book deals with his compositional techniques and inner structures of his pieces which are connected with the relationships between the players, particularly how these relationships are constructed in a democratic manner and their influence on the audience and players in a broader social sense.

I was very pleased to read a wonderful commentary directly from Christian in his email to me this year: “I finished your book/dissertation. I think it’s very good, especially the combination of analysis with your direct experience of performing. You are the first to do that on such a scale. The pianist Philip Thomas has done something like it, writing about his playing of some of my piano music. But that’s for solo playing. You treat the ensemble situation which is closer to social issues.”

The book was written in English, and there is an excerpt published as an article in the online magazine Which Sinfonia.

Christian Wolff and Social Aspects in Music (whichsinfonia.com)

For orders in the Czech Republic:
Compositional Techniques of Christian Wolff and Social Aspects in Music – Nakladatelství Janáčkovy akademie múzických umění (jamu.cz)

For international orders:
Compositional Techniques of Christian Wolff and Social Aspects in Music – Lucie Vítková | KOSMAS.cz – vaše internetové knihkupectví

You can also get a copy in the USA (shipped locally): order at musicvitkovalucie@gmail.com

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.

• 

„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.