Biography

Krystof MARATKA

The works of Krystof Maratka have already found favour with a wide international audience. Programmed in multiple festivals and concert series in Europe, the United States, Australia, Russia, China, etc., his compositions have been commissioned by various institutions (the French Government, the Evian Competition, the Association Musique Nouvelle en Liberté, the Prince of Polignac, the Présences Festival, the Sophia Antipolis Foundation (France), the Rostal Competition in Berlin, the Dresden Contemporary Music Festival, the Korsholm Music Festival in Finland, the country of Norway, the Caramoor Festival in the USA...)

On the creative plane, orchestral conducting occupies an important place in Krystof Maratka's work. "It is a necessity for me, because it is one thing to write music and another to bring it to life on stage. They go hand in hand, and as a composer, it is only during moments of creation as a performer that I feel whole." Thus, Krystof Maratka has performed with the National Theatre Orchestra of Prague, the Irkoutsk Philharmonic Orchestra, the Talich Chamber Orchestra, La Follia of Strasbourg, the St. Cézaire Academy Orchestra, the Jyväskyla Orchestra (Finland)...

Krystof Maratka was born in Prague in 1972. He studied piano and chamber music, and then took courses in writing style, analysis and composition at the Prague Conservatory with Bohuslav Rehor and Petr Eben. The country was in the process of opening to new influences after the fall of the communist regime. Krystof Maratka took advantage of this freedom to travel, in particular with the aid of a grant from the Institut Français in Prague. In 1994, he settled in Paris, receptive to the positive attitude that French institutions and performers had toward new music. In 1999, he participated in the computer music cursus at IRCAM, and was prize-winner of the Natexis Foundation. Since then he has collaborated with numerous international orchestras and ensembles such as the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, the National Orchestra of France, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, the Orchestra of Radio France, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, St. Luke's Orchestra New York, the Lodz Philharmonic...

Work(s)

" Vabeni "

Lemoine Jobert

SÉLECTION 2015

CREATION

11/19/2012, Lodz, Poland. Tansman International Music Festival - Fall Schola Cantorum Gedanensis, Orchestra Sinfonia Varsovia, Krystof Maratka (direction).

NOTE

From the time of the daybreak of the humanity, we notice the man's the desire to exceed death and to touch transcendence by creative acts.

Prehistoric art represents a treasure fascinating art expressions: an evidence of the limitless fancy of human mind which reacts to its own existence in an unexpected and innovative way.

Vabeni is the third part of a trilogy which draws inspiration freely from prehistoric art. A trilogy became a kind of "Symphony of the Old World" the first work of which is Otisk for symphonic orchestra and the second Zverohra for soprano and orchestrates. Otisk (2004) reflects the tones of the musical instruments of the Paleolithic. Zverohra (2008) reflects the birth of human language and of first vocal expressions. Vabeni (2009/11) is a synthesis of both previous concepts. This union is also expressed in three titles: Otisk ("Imprinted" in Czech, masculine name), Zverohra (in Czech, female name for "Game of animals"), Vabeni ("Attraction" in Czech, neutral name).

In the middle of the triptych domiciles the feeling of a prodigious beauty in front of the authentic expressions facing existence and which are liberated from the temporary tendencies of concepts of the "nice" of this or that civilisation. Precisely, this absolute freedom is the key of Vabeni.

The musical woof of work is weaved as a ritual lived real-time, as a ceremony the witnesses of which we are from start to finish. Six movements represent instants-keys which they cross in the course of work and that lean on six letters of title: v has b e n i.

The chorus is the soloist of work and its role is key. His character virtuoso sculpts plights by recalling archaic beings whose fossils rise from the dead and speak through the intense rituals.

The function of the text of the choral part is purely sound and not significant.

I devoted work to Vaclav Havel - posthumous, not only as a sign of recognition and of respect, but also as a footprint of the attraction of human creative force demonstrating the same desire to grab existence, so much prehistoric time as at present.

Krystof Maratka