ONDŘEJ ADÁMEK (b.1979): Sinuous Voices for Ensemble, Conséquences particulièrement blanches ou noires concerto for Airmachine and Ensemble, Ça tourne ça bloque for Ensemble and Electronics.

Description: There is no question that Adámek has developed an unique style and sound that is only obliquely related to any other school or type of music, but draws on a bewildering array of influences of all kinds. The primary concern seems to be with timbre - of as many and as diverse kinds as possible. This is the most immediately apparent, complex, and, it must be said, arresting feature of the music. Rhythm - often mechanical and propulsive and with a strong beat - gives the music a lively energy, not infrequently suggesting various types of popular, electronica and jazz styles. The importance of pitch material and harmony is variable, and where either is present they tend toward the relatively uncomplicated and accessible, though they may also be inflected by microtones or aspects of the many cultures throughout the world that the composer has studied. Conséquences is a concerto for the composer's invention - the 'Airmachine' - and ensemble. This is a theatrical installation of an instrument consisting of a series of pumps feeding a number of valves controlled by computer and/or performer which can very precisely activate any kind of noise-making device attached to them, from conventional wind instruments through toys and noisemakers to things that you wouldn't normally think of a musical objects at all. The piece begins with the machine imitating breath sounds, and progresses to it laying down a succession of funky beats in various odd timbres which the ensemble takes up, and the two end up imitating each other. The result is very 'alternative' and performance-art-ish, but far more approachable than avant-garde in the usual sense. The other two pieces are based on similar ideas, Ça tourne ça bloque takes recordings from various spoken sources and arranges them into the pulsing rhythmic basis of the piece, to which the ensemble adds a rich tapestry of instrumental sonorities, and Sinuous Voices takes the rhythms, vocal characteristics and acoustical surroundings of two very different vocal recitations and imitates, or caricatures, them through instrumental means, including a wide range of unorthodox playing techniques. Roméo Monteiro (airmachine), Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain; Daniel Kawka, Ondřej Adámek (Ça tourne).