the central european chamber orchestra

The Central European Chamber OrchestraMitteleuropäisches Kammerorchester

Presentation of the Orchestra

Review of HERMES 2008-2009

Content

The Central European Chamber OrchestraMitteleuropäisches Kammerorchester

1. Mission statement

2. The conductor Ajtony Csaba

3. Review

4. Contact

1. The Central European Chamber Orchestra | Mission statement

The Vienna-based Central European Chamber Orchestra was founded in 2005. It came into being owing to the enthusiasm and adventurous spirit of students. By now, many of these young musicians have matured into excellent instrumentalists, committed composers, experienced arrangers, and promising conductors.

This gathering of artists from different countries, with different musical and educational backgrounds, made possible a great deal of flexibility in terms of repertoire. In addition to its work on pieces from New Music and familiar disciplines, the ensemble aims at establishing a close co-operation with artists with background in performing and visual arts.

The mission of the ensemble is to establish itself as a interregional significant musical entity which does not see Vienna as its sole area of activity, but rather as an important centre, the focal point of a realm of Central European culture which transcends national borders. The Central European Chamber Orchestra has given two international guest performances in China, where careful introduction of interesting, extravagant pieces resonated well with the audience.

The latest project has chosen itself the name of hermes for the season 2008/09, the god connecting and mediating between the divine and the human worlds. The concerts were held in the cities of eastern and central Europe connecting cultures and generations and create a link between performers and audiences. In this project, the group was scheduled to visit four cities in four countries: Vienna, Budapest, Bratislava and Bucharest. Each concert featured, besides works by young composers with ties to the group, pieces by musicians of significance in European contemporary music. Each concert was enriched by the visual experience of video installations and projections by artists from the Viennese visual arts scene.

Image1 MKO

Image2 string section

Image3 conductor Ajtony Caba

2. The Central European Chamber Orchestra | The conductor Ajtony Csaba

Image4 Ajtony Csaba

Ajtony Csaba was born in Siebenbürgen, where he took a degree at the conservatoire in cello performance, piano performance, solfeggio, and composition. He went on to study conducting and composition at the Ferenc Liszt academy in Budapest (Zoltan Jeney, Tamas Gal).

From 2001 until 2007, he studied orchestral conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna with Uroš Lajović, composition with Dieter Kaufmann, musical coaching with Konrad Leitner, as well as media composition with Klaus Peter Sattler.

In 2007 he received a triple MA in two countries, and earned distinction for his graduation recital with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in Musikverein.

As a conductor and composer, he has given numerous concerts, both at home and abroad, performing new works as well as classical repertoire. This includes performances in Acanthes, France, with the Hungarian UMZE Chamber Orchestra (Varese, P. Eötvös, A. Csaba) in 2001, in Szombathely, Hungary (Bartók) in 2004, and with the Wroclaw Symphonic Orchestra in the Wroclaw Philharmonics Building in Poland (Liszt) in 2006.

He has conducted performances of works by Stravinsky, Puccini, Bizet, Brahms, Sibelius and Debussy amongst others in Vienna and Budapest.

He has received prizes at numerous competitions, including the Theodor Körner prize of the City of Vienna.

During his studies, he benefited from valuable opportunities to put his ideas into practice. In 2005 he worked as an assistant for modern productions at the Hungarian National Philharmonics, where the premiere of his opera "Gentle Birth" was given.

In 2005/2006 he worked as a musical supervisor at the Hellerau European Arts Centre (Festspielhaus). In addition, he was in charge of numerous operatic productions by the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts at the Neue Studiobühne. He has served as Head of the Central European Chamber Orchestra, with which he toured China in 2006 (seven performances, including those in Shenhen, Lanzhou and in the Parliament in Beijing). The second Chinese tour followed in 2007. Ajtony Csaba has been Head of the Viennese Jeunesse Chor since 2007.

3. The Central European Chamber Orchestra | Review

2005

J. Varga.:Klavierkonzert, B. Bolcso:Fluid Music Academy Budapest

2006

P. Maxwell-Davis: Miss Donnithorne´s Maggott Studiobühne,Penzing, Vienna Vivaldi: Gloria ed Imeneo Studiobühne,Penzing, Vienna Mozart: Symhony g-minor KV 550 J.S.Bach: Suite in H-moll Reformierte Stadtkirche, Vienna Purcell: Dido and Aeneas Studiobühne,Penzing, Vienna Sibelius, Brahms, Bizet, J. Strauss,... First Tour to China, 7 Concerts China / Shenzhen, Lanzhou, Beijing Parliament,...

2007

Mozart: Trinitatismesse Donaufelder Pfarrkirche , Vienna A. Csaba, Th. Skweres, J. Kretz, J. Varga,... Alte Schmiede, Wien TRAFO theater, Budapest Mozart: Missa brevis in G (KV 140) Dom, Brunn am Gebirge J. Cage, Mendelssohn, Bizet, Brahms,... Second Tour to China, 15 Concerts Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Beijing, Xi´an, Chengdu,...

2008

B. Bartók: The Castle of Duke Bluebeard /A. Schönberg: ErwartungStudiobühne Penzing, Vienna

A.Schönberg: Erwartung (Karaew-Fassung) /Rautavaara : Octet for WindsSchönberg Center, Vienna

HERMES concert cycles 2008-2009

free style hermes F. Riederer: Iniciacao Romitelli: Trash TV TranceJ. Varga: AugeC. Czernowin: Six Miniatures and a simultane Song J. Sarwas: Queen-tetAutumn Festival, Budapest / Collegium Hungaricum, Wien /Music Academy, Bratislava Visuals by 4youreye

free style hermes, Vienna 2009 free style hermes, Vienna

Vertical Concert with works by

Jonathan HarveyAjtony Csaba Balint BolcsoWolfgang LiebhartTomasz Skweres

Piotr SkweresAlexander KralOlga NeuwirthIvan BuffaJuraj Vajo

church Farnosť Sv. Rodiny, Bratislava / reformed church Fasori, Budapest

Vertical Concert, new sacred music without words

haydn.reflected

Joseph Haydn: Symphonie Nr. 6, "Le Matin"

Reflections on "Le Matin":

Jana Kmiťová: MottoIvan Buffa: ...wieder Morgen...Balazs Horvath: Tak Balint Bolcso: Good Morning

haydn.reflected, Vienna Witold Lutoslawski: Grave.Metamorphoses haydn.reflected, Bratislava

Collegium Hungaricum, Vienna / Palais Pálffy, Bratislava / Music Academy Franz List, BudapestVisuals by 4youreye

aperghis.play

Samuel Gryllus: Le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnuFausto Romitelli: Blood on the Floor, Painting 1986Georges Aperghis: RecitationsPhilippe Hurel: LoopsMatthias Kranebitter: spreu und scherbenAperghis: La Nuit en TêteWolfgang Liebhart: Octet

aperghis.play, Vienna aperghis.play, BucharestCollegium Hungaricum, Wien / Palais Pálffy, Bratislava / Óbudai Társaskör, Budapest / Sala Enescu, BucharestVisuals and installation by Sarah Rechberger

4. The Central European Chamber Orchestra | “hermes 2008-2009”

"To turn the making of music into a collaborative and transforming activity, the cooperative character of the activity to the exact source of the music. To stir up, through the production of the music, a sense of social conditions in which we live and of how these might be changed."

Christian Wolff

Preambulum

The capability of a region in spreading the output of young artists is vastlydetermined by the developement of infrastructure and the available channels ofcommunication.That implicates that members of creativ communities in central europe have a strongdisadvantage in comparison with their western europe collegues keeping track ofartistic activities in their surrounding area. So happens often, that a newperformance in this area first reaches a major musical center in europe, and then isbeeing redistributed to the "external" territories. That can represent sometimes adelay of up to 10 years, which is definitely to much in a development of an artist.Establishing a regular cultural circuit between Bucharest, Bratislava, Budapest andVienna provides for the musicians and every art-consumer in spite of infrastructurallacks with a very recent information about artistic trends in the partner countries.

Project 2008/09 “hermes”

Idea

Usually, during an artistic education in abroad gains each performer an additional input to his identity, meanwhile he enriches the cultural diversity of the center which he attends. Then returning to the hometown, takes with him not only the experience of one other culture, but the experience of a whole mixture of cultures it exists on this place. Inspired from this multidirectional cultural interaction, we planed a cycle of performances played from people they worked on the program abroad (in Vienna at the moment), then took the whole “mixture” of human input with them to their hometown and perform it.

We invited musicians from the partner towns with strong interests on contemporary arts, to work with us on written music, improvisation concept and live-performance sets written by composers and artists from the partner regions. Then we went on tour and performed the program in each of the partner cities, “redistributing” the artistic “mixture”, which is the result of the collective work. We launched a series of 4 programs, played by an ensemble where the members come from these partner regions, symbolizing the role of the messenger, sharing the information – and in transferred sense – the musical, cultural goods between the partner regions.

We intended cooperation between cultural organizers in Vienna (A), Budapest (H), Bratislava (SK) and Bucharest (RO) in order to create a cultural cycle and common musical pulse for sharing actual music performances – principally from the contemporary repertoire, improvisation, live performance but also including compositions of the traditional literature.

Content

Each of the four concerts took focus on a composer, who represents a strong and important influence on the music reception of our time. These composers had one major work, which took ca 20-25% of the program-time. (First Fausto Romitelli, Chaya Czernowin, Joseph Haydn and Georges Aperghis). In the major part of the performance we presented compositions, live performances, installations created in the partner regions, which have a special connection, commendatory, critical or counter pointing relation to this selected thematic works. So is one performance also – in a philosophical way – the reaction of a whole region on a special artistic statement, presented as thema.

With hermes we intended to establish a musical cycle that should lead to a permanentcirculation in this region in terms of music, but also in discovering artistic elements thatconnect the multiply but still separated creative potentials of the middle-european regionwith each other and encourage a sense of community.

Visuals

The reception of the New Music is often problematic, because the associations induced by the compositions are not enough evident for every segment of the audition. Therefore we staged each concert in cooperation with projection artists with a dynamic visual design, which made the whole program perceivable not only for the ears and brain but provided also an important visual layer.

5. The Central European Chamber Orchestra | Contact

Mitteleuropäisches Kammerorchester

Messenhausergasse 10/21A-1030 Vienna

@: [email protected]

Artistic director

Ajtony CsabaT: +43-660-6546566


Project Management

Jan VysockyT: +43-650-2038543


Public Relations

Ulrike DröscherT: +43-699-25158404


mailto:[email protected]




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