Kunstradio presents three recent productions by Czech Radio’s Radiocustica program.

Link:
Ars Acustica

1) “Zone” by Eliška Cílková

Foto: Eliska Cilkova

Artist’s Statement:
In recent years, I have repeatedly visited the radioactive area surrounding the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant. This place has always left a strong impression on me. I understand the Chernobyl Zone from a site-specific point of view, because the overgrown buildings and abandoned amusement park present a bizarre sight amidst the surrounding wild nature.
The audio composition Zone represents an associative walk through a total of five spaces in the town of Pripyat. At one point, this town was home to some 50,000 people. Because it is located ca. 2km from the power plant, it had to be abandoned forever. Even 27 years later, there is so much radioactivity that you can only spend several hours here at a time, and only with a special permit.
Although the town has seen plenty of plundering, it still offers many original sights – after all, it was and basically still is home to thousands of flats, numerous shops, restaurants, a school of visual arts, three indoor pools, a hospital and polyclinic and much more. For this reason, I wanted to capture the city not from the viewpoint of the nuclear disaster, but from the viewpoint of what is there today. And so I have spent several years seeking out the abandoned musical instruments of the Chernobyl Zone in order to visit and record them. Two of them have made it into this composition, although for the purposes of PremEdice I recorded primarily sounds from other spaces.
In the composition’s introduction, we enter a concert hall with a rusting grand piano on the stage. It still plays after 27 years, despite the fact that it is missing its top and there is water dripping throughout the place. We then move to another space, to the sound of a Geiger counter whose characteristic beeping provides information on the surrounding radioactivity.  
The second space that opens before us is an old movie theatre where the water was most apparent. Here it should be mentioned that there is water flowing through many of Pripyat’s buildings even when it is nice outside (for instance because of condensation).  
The third place I visited was an abandoned preschool. When I entered, I was surprised at how many original items have remained – meticulously arranged children’s toys on the shelves or carnival costumes that have disintegrated only slightly, despite the ravages of time. At the preschool I found a piano and many children’s musical instruments such as xylophones, rattles, and drums, whose sounds form the basis for the entire third part.
The fourth audio space I chose was the Pripyat amusement park, where you can find the remains of carousels and swings, overgrown bumper cars, and a majestic Ferris wheel. One interesting thing is that the big wheel never turned, because it was waiting for the May Day festivities. When I came up to it, I shook it so hard that the whole thing started moving. I was actually a little afraid that it might collapse on me, but my yearning for its sound was stronger.
The final space is the house of art. Besides some old Vermona synthesizers, it also contained a broken piano without hammers, which someone had removed and put down nearby. I spent a while wondering how it might have sounded if it had the hammers, because it was solidly built and stood in a room with no water or any open windows – it would thus have been protected from the surrounding natural influences. I decided to at least record what had remained of it, because even strings can possess great magic. Not until I got home did I realize that it was a similar discovery as with John Cage’s prepared pianos. At the conclusion of the composition, we hear a brief coda recording my departure from this place.
People, who have visited the Chernobyl Zone once, often tend to return. A person changes in this guarded radioactive zone. You become aware of causes and effects, and see the strength of nature and its ability to win and to adapt.

One former resident of Pripyat told me that in his desk in his apartment on the third floor of an apartment block on the town square are old childhood photographs that he occasionally goes to see.
“Why don’t you take them with you?” I ask him. “Why? Because then there wouldn’t be anything left in Pripyat at all, „he answered.
(This conversation formed the main inspiration for my projects related to this region)

Links:
http://www.pripyatpiano.com
http://www.soundsofchernobylzone.com
http://www.rozhlas.cz/radiocustica_english/project/_zprava/eliska-cilkova-zone--1273642

2) “Vltaraná“ by Alan Courtis

PLAY EXCERPT

Argentine/Czech composer Alan Courtis was born in 1972 in Buenos Aires, where he currently lives. His grandfather was Czech and settled in Argentina in 1927, allowing his family to have dual citizenship. Courtis studied classical guitar, piano theory and composition. His scores have been played by ensembles from Switzerland, England, USA and Argentina.

The piece creates an imaginary link between two rivers: the Vltava in the Czech Republic and the Paraná in Argentina. Both rivers stretch along considerable extensions of their respective countries connecting towns and cities, and building identity across vast landscapes.

The Vltava runs north from its source in Šumava, crossing Prague before merging with the Elbe at Mělník. The Paraná, the second largest river in South America, is born in northern Brazil and runs south through Paraguay and Argentina, where it merges with the Paraguay and Uruguay rivers to form the Río de la Plata estuary, which leads into the Atlantic Ocean.

Combining recordings and other acoustic and electronic sounds this composition will explore symbolic connections between both rivers while simultaneously delving into the Czech-Argentine identity of the composer himself.

Sound Sources: field recordings, electronics, strings and processed voices.

Link:
http://www.rozhlas.cz/radiocustica_english/project/_zprava/alan-courtis-vltarana--1165697

3) „Wind Fusion“ von Jan Trojan & Ivan Boreš

PLAY EXCERPT

Our aim was to capture the microstructure of sound within a continuity of time defined by signal length and acoustic space. The guitar, a stringed strumming instrument, was made to sound by the air from an electric fan that ensured the strings’ constant resonation. The string’s pitch was controlled in the classical manner – i.e., by shortening or lengthening it with the touch of a hand. The resultant harmonies are produced by the natural resonance of the strings created by the airflow.

While working on 'Wind Fusion', we endeavored to maximally acknowledge, preserve, and promote the acoustic conditions and the time and place of recording. We recorded at the 'U Hrusky' tearoom in Prachatice during the night of the 22nd and 23rd of September – the autumnal equinox. Most of the material was created in the Morocco Salon. At the close of the night, while cleaning up, we played the recording on the tearoom’s audio system and, through our steps, acknowledged the entire space (from the Morocco Salon via the tearoom’s main room towards the front door).

The first recording was made at 1.43am (when we first turned on the electric fan); the last one was made at 5.55am and lasted half a minute (when we turned off the tearoom’s ventilation system). The composition thus captures, at a constant scale, the real recording time.

Ivan Boreš: guitar, electric fan
Jan Trojan: recording, audio design

Link:
http://www.rozhlas.cz/radiocustica_english/project/_zprava/ivan-bores-jan-trojan-wind-fusion--1165916