The third edition of Spółdzielnia Muzyczna Contemporary Ensemble's composition and performance project. Invariably, it has been based on the idea of collaboration between artists and instrumentalists – open, inspiring both sides and directed towards what is new in art and emerges on the horizon.

This time, the Krakow team decided to reach out to artists by proposing the theme of ecology, future, life on earth and adaptation to changing conditions. The reference point for the new pieces of the three PLAYGROUND finalists – Ilona Perger, Ian Mikyski and Lautaro Figueroa Balcarce – was Rafał Ryterski's Birdsongs.

Note by Rafal Ryterski:

Change. Adaptation. Flow. These are the key words used in the Birdsongs piece. Here, bird migrations are treated as a metaphor – a mirror at which a person looks both as an individual and as a species. Like in birds, constant change is inherent in us due to the need for balance. In Birdsongs, the stage aspect of the work is extremely important – the performers perform a sort of soundtrack to a video that is a fabricated nature documentary. The dramaturgy of the whole is based, above all, on a constant flow of attentiveness between video, music, electronic sounds and voice-over interwoven into an inseparable whole. The content of this work derives from the collision of its individual parts through the juxtaposition of contexts. Birdsongs is not just a piece of music – it is a multimedia work, however lofty this may sound.

Note by Ilona Perger:

You do not write a piece about the great philosophical significance of nature – just about mushrooms. (Do you think we will find anything?). Mushrooms symbolise the connection between the individual and the collective, which is a key aspect of our necessary transformation in the future society.

Note by Lautaro Figueroa Balcarce:

A lament or lamentation is a profound expression of grief, often in the form of poetry or song. This grief usually stems from mourning or a sense of loss. Lament can also be expressed verbally when participants mourn something they regret or someone they have lost. They are usually accompanied by wailing, moaning and/or crying. (Wikipedia 2024)

Note by Ian Mikyski:

One of the inspirations for my piece is James Bridel's 2022 book, Ways of Being, in which the author argues for a broader and more inclusive conception of intelligence – the one that can include the intelligent behaviour of animals, plants and machines. He discusses the 'shared Umwelt' between different intelligences: the spaces where we can meet, understand and imagine – how plants hear insects, how trees talk to each other, how an octopus's brain is spread along its tentacles. Bridle also cites quantum physicist Karen Barad and her concept of intra-action, which replaces the interaction between stable bodies with an emergent intra-action between unstable entities, whereby everything is constituted as emergence.

In this piece, the mixed and combined realities include the reality of the concert hall and its highly developed musical instruments, field recordings (all made on Petřín Hill, a prototypical natural-urban habitat not far from my home in Prague) that include both natural and mechanical sounds, various electromagnetic signals (mainly communication interference) and silence. The duration (later developing into a rhythm) serves as a unifying element between these worlds, with established proportions of the 'tape' parts serving as a backdrop for decisions made live by the musicians. Duration is also the main focus of the musicians for the most part of the piece. The word 'in-between' in the title refers both to this blending of worlds and domains and to the Buddhist concept of the Middle Way, emphasising siunjata (śūnyatā) – a Sanskrit word usually translated as 'emptiness', which is perhaps conveyed more aptly by the English 'boundlessness', 'groundlessness' or 'in-between-ness'.

Rafał Ryterski – Birdsongs for ensemble and electronics (2023) 30' [Polish premiere]

Ilona Perger – Mycelia for ensemble, video and tape (2024) [world premiere]

Lautaro Figueroa Balcarce – Lamento for amplified octet, electronics and video (2024) [world premiere]

Ian Mikyska – Between for ensemble and electronics (2024) [world premiere]

Spółdzielnia Muzyczna contemporary ensemble

Venue: Cricoteka Centre for the Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor, ul. Nadwiślańska 2/4