What can form the starting point for a musical composition? The human voice, a single note, sounds from the world around us, a synthesiser or an algorithm? Where does the composer end and technology begin? These are some of the questions explored by this year’s Exposition of New Music festival, subtitled Ars Spectrum.
“Visitors can look forward to a six-day exploration of the world of spectral music. Spectral composers draw, among other things, on the acoustic properties of sound itself, using them as a basis for harmony, instrumentation and musical form. You could say that their focus is on the note itself – its internal structure, its spectrum and the way it changes over time. Audiences will hear music ranging from precursors of spectral thinking such as Giacinto Scelsi, through the work of Tristan Murail and Fausto Romitelli, to contemporary live electronics and algorithmic composition,” said Marie Kučerová, director of Brno Philharmonic, which organises the festival.
The theme of spectral music was chosen for the festival’s 38th edition by its new programmer, Otto Wanke. “For me, spectralism is not simply a historical movement in music, but above all a way of thinking about sound and how we perceive it. Timbre can become harmony, the internal structure of a single note can unfold into a large-scale musical form, and today electronics, improvisation and new technologies also enter into these processes. The individual concerts therefore reveal very different forms of spectral thinking – from solo and chamber music through large orchestra to installations and algorithmic composition,” Wanke explained.
The opening night on Saturday 3 October promises an extraordinary experience combining music, video and light with the aesthetics of psychedelic rock, noise and electronic music – all in the underground garages beside Brno’s Bobycentrum. The programme of the An Index of Metals concert features the work of the same name by Italian composer Fausto Romitelli. In the composer’s own words, his monumental video opera is intended as a “total perceptual experience”, in which sound, image and light merge into a single stream leading towards a hypnotic trance. It will be performed by soprano Kaoko Amano and BCO – Brno Contemporary Orchestra. The opera will be preceded by Michal Rataj’s A Game of Chess, commissioned by the orchestra. “The musical exchange between two groups of players, notionally linked by the piano, can be full of unexpected twists and turns as well as silence, tension and release. But ultimately it is the chess players in particular who, through the dynamics of their game, propel the entire ensemble forward through musical time,” Rataj said of the work.
On Sunday, the Fama Q string quartet will present From Scelsi to Post-Spectralism, bringing together music by several generations of composers united by a fascination with timbre and the inner structure of sound. In his music, Giacinto Scelsi focused attention on a single note and its continual transformation – an approach that was later to have a profound influence on spectral thinking and on composers including Jonathan Harvey, Kaija Saariaho, Georg Friedrich Haas and Franck Bedrossian. The concert will also feature Periphéria by Jan Kavan, commissioned by the festival. “When we focus on a single note, we suddenly discover an entire world within it. Spectral composers began exploring this world almost as if looking through a microscope – not to find something we already know, but to discover something new,” Wanke said of the principle behind spectral composition.
One of the highlights of the festival will be Monday evening’s Music, Mind and Machine, which brings together two radically different approaches to electronics. Karlheinz Essl, a pioneer of algorithmic composition, will present live electronics and modular synthesisers, including several world premieres. Polish composer and performer Franciszek Araszkiewicz, meanwhile, will transform human brain activity into electronic sound in real time in his performance Deep Thought. Both projects explore the question of how technology can become directly involved in the creation of music. In Essl’s work, electronic sound is shaped through algorithmic processes and real-time interaction, while Araszkiewicz incorporates data derived from human brain activity into the musical process. The evening thus sets two very different relationships between humans, machines and musical decision-making alongside one another. “Order and chaos are not opposites, but different forms of the same thing,” Essl says. For him, the creative process can take place precisely between these two poles. His performance therefore reflects one of the central themes of this year’s Exposition: technology is not merely a means of reproducing finished music, but becomes an active part of the creative process itself.
Tuesday evening’s Specula Sonorum will take audiences on a journey from the inner world of a single sound, through the noises of our everyday surroundings, to the mutual listening of improvising musicians. In Tenney’s In a Large, Open Space, audience members will be free to move among the performers, experiencing the transformations of a single harmonic spectrum from different points in the space. Ablinger’s Outside, by contrast, will bring sounds from the surroundings of Besední dům into the concert hall, with the musicians responding to them in real time. The evening will culminate in an extended collective improvisation led by Venezuelan composer, turntablist and performer Jorge Sánchez-Chiong, bringing together Romanian vocalist Claudia Cervenca, the ensemble Dust in the Groove and other guest musicians. The musical form will emerge in the moment from attentive listening, spontaneous responses and the interplay of different musical backgrounds and experiences.
On Wednesday 7 October, the festival will turn its attention to Tristan Murail and his view of the piano as a complex sonic organism. Pianist Marek Keprt will perform works by Murail alongside the world premiere of Keprt’s three intermezzos. The programme will also include a piece by Daniel Oliver Moser and the premiere of a new composition by Dan Dlouhý, employing contemporary algorithmic and computer-assisted compositional techniques. In Murail’s music, according to the festival’s programming concept, the piano becomes not simply an instrument but also an object of investigation. The focus is on resonance and on hidden processes within sound itself that generate musical form, while electronics further extend the instrument’s acoustic possibilities.
The festival will culminate on 8 October with Partiels. The festival’s organiser, Brno Philharmonic, led by Polish conductor Szymon Bywalec, will perform four works that profoundly influenced the development of spectral music in the second half of the twentieth century: Scelsi’s Quattro pezzi su una nota sola, Grisey’s Partiels, Murail’s Désintégrations and Vivier’s Lonely Child. The soloist will be French soprano Donatienne Michel-Dansac, one of today’s leading interpreters of contemporary music. Grisey’s Partiels and Murail’s Désintégrations in particular are landmark works of spectralism. Both composers were members of L’Itinéraire, an ensemble whose activities radically reshaped traditional ideas about harmony, form and orchestration and turned attention towards the physical properties of sound itself.
This year, Ars Spectrum will also extend into public space. Two site-specific works by Filip Dobrocký will be accessible throughout the festival. Sound installation hear:here will offer a sonic walk through Špilberk Park, while Ecosystem 2.0 in the foyer of Besední dům will create a network of fictional organisms communicating through musical patterns. Their behaviour is influenced by a wireless network, creating a dynamic system in which sound structures continually evolve through communication, mutation and adaptation.
The festival runs from 3 to 8 October. All concerts begin at 7 pm at Besední dům, with the sole exception of the opening concert, which takes place at UnderZone Garage on Drobného Street.
From this year’s 38th edition onwards, Otto Wanke and Matej Sloboda will take turns programming the festival. This year’s edition has been devised by Otto Wanke (1989), a Czech composer based in Vienna. His work combines vocal and instrumental composition with electronics, multimedia and sound art. He studied composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts (MDW) and KONS in Vienna, completing a doctorate focused on spectral music. From 2018 to 2023, he worked as an assistant at MDW’s Institute of Ethnomusicology. Since 2020, he has taught composition at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno. Following success in international competitions including the Frederic Mompou Award in Spain, FIMS in Switzerland, and the Nikolaus Fheodoroff Kompositionspreis and Theodor Körner Preis in Austria, his music has been heard at festivals including Ars Electronica, Acht Brücken, Carinthian Summer, Visiones Sonoras and Wien Modern, as well as at the Polish National Opera in Warsaw and ZKM Karlsruhe. His works have been performed by renowned ensembles, orchestras and soloists including PHACE, OENM, Grafenegg Symphony Orchestra, Lars Mlekusch, Wolfgang Mitterer, Yuri Revich and Paul Gulda. His music is published by Verlag Neue Musik Berlin. Alongside his work as a composer, he is also active as an electronic music performer and improviser.
Full festival programme:
SAT 3/10/2026, UnderZone Garage, Drobného 43a, 7 pm
AN INDEX OF METALS
GRISEY Périodes
RATAJ A Game of Chess, commissioned by BCO, world premiere
ROMITELLI An Index of Metals
Kaoko Amano soprano
BCO – Brno Contemporary Orchestra
conductor Pavel Šnajdr
SUN 4/10/2026, Besední dům, 7 pm
FROM SCELSI TO POST-SPECTRALISM
SCELSI String Quartet No. 4
HARVEY String Quartet No. 3
KAVAN Περιφέρεια (PERIPHÉRIA), commissioned by the festival, world premiere
SAARIAHO Nymphéa
BEDROSSIAN Tracés d’ombres
G. F. HAAS String Quartet No. 5
Fama Q String Quartet:
David Danel violin
Roman Hranička violin
Ondřej Martinovský viola
Balázs Adorján cello
MON 5/10/2026, Besední dům, 7 pm
MUSIC, MIND AND MACHINE
ESSL solo set with live electronics and modular synthesisers, world premieres:
Doing Math, Coastline extended, L0P.7OP, Foldinger
ARASZKIEWICZ Deep Thought, performance for live electronics and brainwaves
Karlheinz Essl and Franciszek Araszkiewicz electroacoustic performances
TUE 6/10/2026, Besední dům, 7 pm
SPECULA SONORUM
TENNEY In a Large, Open Space
ABLINGER Outside
SÁNCHEZ-CHIONG collective improvisation with the ensemble Dust in the Groove
Jorge Sánchez-Chiong turntables
Dust in the Groove: Claudia Cervenca vocals, Jana Vondrů vocals, Žaneta Vítová accordion, Martin Opršál marimba, Radim Hanousek bass clarinet, saxophone, Jan Přibil trumpet, Yoram Rosilio double bass, Valentin Duit percussion, drums, Jakub Švejnar percussion, drums, Otto Wanke electronics
Ladislav Mirvis Mirvald sound design
WED 7/10/2026, Besední dům, 7 pm
COMPLEX SOUNDS: PIANO AND BEYOND
MURAIL Cailloux dans l’eau, Cloches d’adieu, et un sourire…, La Mandragore, Résurgence
MOSER Angry Birds
DLOUHÝ SPECTrail m u s i ......., world premiere
KEPRT Intermezzo I–III
Marek Keprt piano
THU 8/10/2026, Besední dům, 7 pm
PARTIELS
SCELSI Quattro pezzi su una nota sola
GRISEY Partiels
MURAIL Désintégrations
VIVIER Lonely Child
Donatienne Michel-Dansac soprano
Brno Philharmonic
conductor Szymon Bywalec
SOUND INSTALLATIONS
SAT 3 – THU 8/10/2026, Špilberk Park
DOBROCKÝ hear:here, sonic walk
SUN 4 – THU 8/10/2026, Besední dům
DOBROCKÝ Ecosystem 2.0, networked sound installation inspired by natural ecosystems
No comment added yet..