"La première représentation de la soirée aurait mérité d'être inscrite au répertoire d'un canon du présent immédiat qui reste à écrire : Divertissant et pourtant incroyablement complexe, bien construit et irritant dans le meilleur sens du terme, ‘Automatones’ de Vito Zuraj nous donne le meilleur de la musique orchestrale contemporaine". Münchner Merkur, 16.10.2023
Les œuvres de Vito Žuraj sont des compositions à la fois puissantes et minutieusement élaborées, qui intègrent souvent des éléments scéniques et une réflexion sur la spatialisation du son. En peu de temps, ses œuvres se sont imposées dans les plus prestigieuses salles de concert et ont été intégrées dans les saisons des plus grandes formations au monde : entre autres par le New York Philharmonic, le BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, le Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, l'Ensemble Modern, l’Ensemle intercontemporain et le Klangforum Wien.
Après le succès de son opéra Blühen, la saison 2024/25 verra la première mondiale de INNEN, interprétée par le Helsinki Chamber Choir et l'Ensemble Recherche lors du festival Musica Nova à Helsinki. Anemoi, œuvre symphonique écrite pour les Berliner Philharmoniker, aura sa première nord américaine avec l’Esprit Orchestra à Toronto en mars 2025.
En 2014, Vito Žuraj a été boursier de l'Akademie der Künste, du ZKM Karlsruhe ainsi que de la Villa Massimo à Rome, dont il a fait partie du jury de 2019 à 2021. En 2020/21, il a été boursier de la Maison internationale des artistes Villa Concordia à Bamberg et en 2023, il a été Fellow de la Fondation Civitella Ranieri.
Vito Žuraj a étudié la composition avec Marko Mihevc, Lothar Voigtländer et Wolfgang Rihm. Depuis 2015, il est professeur de composition et de théorie musicale à l'université de Ljubljana, où il est chargé de mettre en place un studio de musique électronique.
De nombreux ensembles et orchestres programment régulièrement l’œuvre de Vito Žuraj, dont l'Ensemble Modern et l'Orchestre symphonique de la WDR depuis de nombreuses années. Vito Žuraj est lauréat du prix de composition de Stuttgart. En 2016, il a reçu le prix de composition Claudio Abbado de l'Académie Karajan de l'Orchestre philharmonique de Berlin.
Des enregistrements des œuvres de Vito Žuraj ont été publiés, entre autres, par le label Neos.
Saison 2024/25
In ancient Greek religion and mythology the Anemoi were eight wind deities, subject to the god Aeolus, the ruler of all winds, and each assigned a direction from which their winds came and each associated with different seasons and weather conditions, influencing among other things the changing of the climate, the spreading of diseases and the outcome of wars – all subjects that should be addressed by world leaders. In his book “Heaven‘s Breath: A Natural History of the Wind“ the author Lyall Watson describes the wind as a “combination of a force that cannot be apprehended, but nevertheless has an undeniable existence“ – his quote could just as easily apply to music. In the symphonic work Anemoi each of the eight ancient Greek wind gods Boreas, Kaikias, Apeliotes, Eurus, Notus, Livas, Zephyrus and Skiron (depicted in this succession on the Tower of the Winds, an octagonal marble clocktower in the Roman Agora in Athens built around 50 BC and still standing) is characterised by various instrumental formations within the orchestra, including allusions to ancient Greek musical instruments such as the lyre and aulos, the latter's harsh sound being reminiscent of either the howling of wolves or the siren warning of an impending missile attack.
Vito Žuraj, 2024
The Automatones were animated metal statues of animals, humans, and monsters crafted by the divine blacksmith Hephaestus and the Athenian craftsman Daedalus. The boldest of these self-acting creatures—including Caucasian eagles, golden mermaids, and bronze bulls—should be able to think and feel like humans. In one myth, when Herakles was visiting Daedalus' workshop, he smashed one of the statues, mistakenly believing he had been attacked by a real person. So a veteran of artificial intelligence, a topic that is now shaping the world like never before. Behind the AI is extremely delicate "self-learning" computer programming and this stimulated me to research sound about illusions of the seemingly endlessly lasting ascending tone sequences or rhythmic accelerations, as well as to use different types of motor skills in general. But should artificial intelligence also be able to "feel" - or is it just a matter of time?*
*No AI was used in the compositional process of Automatones.
Notice of the work by Vito Žuraj
A photon in the dark – like an atom of sound in silence. In the novel “Of Human Bondage” by British author William Somerset Maugham, the protagonist Philip Carey feels a deep affection for Mildred Rogers, his femme fatale, but she does not reciprocate his emotions. The resulting apparent love affair completely destroys Philip emotionally. I happened to meet “my own” Mildred Rogers. It seemed to me as if all my thoughts revolved only around the Unattainable. Better a painful end than pain without end – I had to say goodbye to her. Then I wandered aimlessly through the woods, searching for sound, for I heard no music in myself at all — only silence in the dark. During this seemingly endless journey, my first sonic flash struck me: a short, soft, high frequency that sounded in time with my heartbeat. I notated this sound impulse in the form of a muffled beat on a bass drum, joined by a short bow stroke on crotales, and I used this sound for the very beginning of my cello concerto.
Thus the composition has autobiographical features, including the fact that I played the cello myself when I was younger. As one of the recurring motifs in the composition, I captured the sonic image of the church bells of the German city of Bamberg, where I was an artist in residence at the Villa Concordia at the time of writing. Are the bells a metaphor for salvation? Among the percussion instruments, I included two church bells, such as those used by Hector Berlioz in his Symphonie fantastique. Another recurring motif is the melancholy reminiscence of the main theme from my chanson setting of Sonnet No. 128 by William Shakespeare, which I dedicated to the Unattainable. The cello concerto is thus a metaphor for the unveiling of my personal world.
Vito Žuraj (translated to English by Neville Hall)