Belgrade (Serbia), October 15, 2021 – Lonesome Skyscraper (2019) for orchestra and electronics by Serbian composer Ivana Ognjanović (born 1971) and Are One (2021) for voice, chamber orchestra and electronics by young Latvian composer Krists Auznieks (born 1992), are the works selected by radio music producers participating in the 67th International Rostrum of Composers (IRC) held in Belgrade (Serbia), from October 12 to 15, 2021.
A flagship programme of the International Music Council, the IRC took place for the first time in its history in Serbia at the invitation of Radio Television of Serbia – Radio Belgrade.
Pursuing its mission to promote contemporary music creation through broadcasting for over sixty years, the annual Rostrum has this year again strengthened its role as one of the most important “rendez-vous” for professional exchange between radio producers. Its overall objective remains fostering the exchange of performances of contemporary music between broadcasting organisations. Works chosen at the preceding Rostrum (2019) were given some 700 broadcasts by participating networks as well as affiliates of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
The 2021 Rostrum gathered representatives from 21 national radio networks from four continents, which presented 37 works composed within the five years preceding the Rostrum. 17 of these works were by composers under the age of 30.
Evert van Berkel, recording producer and coordinator for P2 live at the Swedish Radio, and Davide Grosso, IMC project manager, chaired the sessions. After the listening sessions, the assembly of delegates selected and recommended the most distinctive works in two categories: general and “young composers under 30”.
These and other works will be presented in concerts and broadcast after the Rostrum by the participating and other interested radio stations.
In the general category, Lonesome Skyscraper (2019) by Serbian composer Ivana Ognjanović was selected by the delegates as most outstanding. The work was presented by RTS – Radio Belgrade.
The work was inspired by the extraordinary fate of the high-rise building in Hungarian city of Pécs, which was uninhabited for 27 years, due to the irreparable fault during the construction, and which was finally demolished in 2016. At some point in its history, few floors of the building were inhabited by a colony of pigeons, which was creating strange noise, disturbing the residents of the neighboring buildings.
The composer says about her work: “in order to convey the inner atmosphere of the ruined skyscraper, in the process of composing I have used different techniques of processing sound samples and I insisted on relatively static music material in the orchestra, which was made with minimal musical means”.
In the “young composers” category, the work selected as most worthy for worldwide broadcasting was Are One for voice, chamber orchestra and electronics (2021) by young Latvian composer Krists Auznieks. The composition was presented by Latvian Radio.
The piece is structured around a harmonic cycle which undergirds every moment of the 30 minutes, just like Elliot’s poem, always returning to the beginning which also always happens to be the end. The play of temporalities is not dissimilar to life itself: returning home is never the same as it is impossible to step in the same river twice. Time flows in many dimensions at once: at times coming towards you, at others escaping through your fingers and at others it seems to sit still, as if it did not exist at all.
In addition to the selected works, 10 other works (see list further) were recommended for broadcasting and concert presentation after the Rostrum by the participating and other interested radio stations.
The results of this year’s Rostrum were announced at a press conference held at RTS on 15 October 2021.
As first beneficiary of the newly created IRC prize, thanks to the support of RTP – Radio Antena 2, (Portugal), Ivana Ognjanović will receive a commission for a chamber music work which will be premiered and recorded in Portugal in the coming months.
Krists Auznieks will benefit from a special commission and residence programme in Sweden offered by IMC and Swedish Radio.
During their stay in Belgrade, Rostrum delegates had the possibility to experience the broad spectrum of the Serbian contemporary music scene including a rich discussion with composers of three different generations – Jug K. Marković, Svetlana Savić and Miroslav Miša Savić – and an outstanding performance of works by Serbian composers by the ensemble Metamorphosis, conducted by Saša Mirković.
GENERAL CATEGORY
SELECTED WORK
Ivana Ognjanović (Serbia) Lonesome Skyscraper
RECOMMENDED WORKS
Latvia Krists Auznieks Are One
Russia Kirill Arkhipov Anomalia
Germany Séverine Ballon Novembre2020
Slovenia Tilen Lebar Staticotion
Portugal Pedro Lima Talkin(g) (A)bout My Generation
Switzerland John Menoud Randolph navigation
Denmark Steingrímur Rohloff Die 4 Himmelsrichtungen
Poland Rafał Ryterski Disco Bloodbath (Got to be real)
Poland Sławomir Wojciechowski Magenta
COMPOSERS UNDER 30 CATEGORY
SELECTED WORK
Krists Auznieks (Latvia) Are one
RECOMMENDED WORKS
Slovenia Tilen Lebar Staticotion
Portugal Pedro Lima Talkin(g) (A)bout My Generation
Poland Rafał Ryterski Disco Bloodbath (Got to be real)
Austria Mathias Johannes es riecht nach winter…
Schmidhammer
China –
Hong-Kong SAR Yu Tsz-long please don’t open