Three evenings, three world premieres, and a return after five years.

The Prague contemporary music festival Contempuls is once again springing back to life this autumn. The new edition will bring a concentrated format to the intimate space of Atrium Žižkov – each of the three planned evenings will feature one solo and one ensemble concert.

On Friday, October 30th, the festival opens with a recital by German harpsichordist Richard Röbel. He will introduce audiences to the previously unimagined interpretive possibilities of this historical instrument within a purely contemporary musical language. He will do so through the works of Adriana Hölszky, Lydia Weißgerber, Fabian Blum, Michael Quell, Jakub Rataj, Helmuth Flammer, Dietrich Petzold, Babette Koblenz, as well as through his own original compositions.

In the second half of the evening, the premier Canadian saxophone quartet Quasar will take the stage. The ensemble will perform a program built from works by Émilie Girard-Charest, Florence Tremblay, Eduarda Caballera, Amy Brandon, the highlight of which will be the world premiere of a composition by Michal Wróblewski, commissioned directly by the Contempuls festival.

The second festival evening, on October 31st, turns its attention to the domestic music scene. The opening segment will be led by the outstanding violinist David Danel. He will open his set, to which he has also invited other musical guests, with a selection from the probable series by Iranian-American creator Ramin Akhavijou. These compositions will organically guide the listeners to a performance of the seminal work "Hay que caminar" soñando by Luigi Nono, a classic of the Italian post-war avant-garde. The opening concert will then be brought to a close with the string quartet "...qui transitis per viam..." by Italian composer Ivan Fedele, in which the composer reflects on the legacy of Renaissance master Gesualdo da Venosa.

Subsequently, the leading domestic ensemble Prague Modern will take the stage. They will present a highly topical repertoire featuring a triptych of works by British composer Hannah Kendall, music by Iranian composer Anahita Abbasi, Lebanese creator Elia Koussa, Czech composer Šimon Voseček, and will also return to the work of Ramin Akhavijou with another composition. The program, and eventually the entire evening, will be crowned by a premiere from Ravi Kittappa titled "...zůstane mezi námi..." (...will remain between us...), which was also composed at the initiative of the festival.

The final evening of this year's edition falls on November 1st and will belong to Polish music. The program opens with a solo piano recital by a central figure and living legend of contemporary Polish music, Zygmunt Krauze. He will present himself in a truly exceptional and rarely performed format: the composer and pianist in one person will weave his own original works together with fragments of musical history (from J. S. Bach, J. Haydn, and L. van Beethoven, through F. Chopin and E. Satie, all the way to A. Webern, O. Messiaen, K. Stockhausen, B. Schaeffer, and L. Andriessen) into a single, continuous stream of piano improvisation. An elegant bridge and the culmination of the first half of the evening will then be a quintet for strings and piano, where the renowned string quartet NeoQuartet will join the composer himself.

After the intermission, this top-tier ensemble—which will become the new ensemble-in-residence of Contempuls for the next three years—will take full command of the stage and close out the entire festival. They will offer a program featuring compositions by Johannes Kalitzke, Helmuth Flammer, and Tomasz Prasqual. Its conceptual centerpiece and the grand finale of this year's edition will be the world premiere of a new string quartet by Luboš Mrkvička, written once again as a festival commission.

We look forward to seeing you at Atrium Žižkov.

– Your new festival team
Jakub Rataj
Mikuláš Zelinský
Mikuláš Mrva