Adamek, Ondrej - Follow me - Where are you? - Faust, Isabelle

Born in Prague in 1979, composer, conductor, and choirmaster Ondréj Adámek studied in his hometown in the Czech Republic and in Paris, and has already won numerous prestigious awards for his orchestral and chamber music, vocal music, and electroacoustic music. With his musical language, which often incorporates elements from distant cultures, he creates unusual musical narratives. He strives for authenticity in his interpretations by combining sounds and movements, gestures and theatricality, phonetic and semantic aspects, and instruments he has developed himself. The premieres of Ond?ej Adámek's works "Where are You?" and "Follow me" were distinguished by their outstanding casts, which included Magdalena Ko?ená, Isabelle Faust, and Simon Rattle. In Adámek's three-part violin and orchestra concerto "Follow me," the melodies are divided between the soloist and the orchestra in accordance with late medieval hockey technique, in which the composer seeks to unite the individual with the group. The premiere of Adámek's "Where are You?"... a work composed for mezzo-soprano and orchestra, was a significant event in Munich's concert program this year. In this eleven-part, approximately 35-minute-long audio kaleidoscope, dominated by continuous motoric movement – ranging from everyday sounds, such as the monotonous ticking of a clock, to the broad, electrifying rhythmic pounding of an orchestra tutti ensemble – the composer sets out in search of the human ("Where do we come from and where are we going?") and the divine.