Religion, TripTicks Tapes, NY 2022

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

Prague Spring 2022

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)

BOOK PUBLISHING 2022

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

Water Turbine in Dresden and Görlitz, 03/2022

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.

Aging, New York 05/14/2021

„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, release, Nov 2020

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.

Vibrant Matter, Berlin (DE), Feb 2020

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.

Batard-Emergency, Brussels (BE), Jan 2020

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.

Emergency-Migration
photo by Cilian O’Neill

ISSUE Project Room, NYC 2/2019

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. 

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

Roulette Residency, NYC 1/2018

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.

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