SPACE Festival

The SPACE festival has a truly interesting history behind it. The idea of organising an international festival was born during Ivan Šiller and Andrea Bálešová’s studies in Ghent, Belgium, and their co-creator was the accordionist Mária Mártonová Kormanová. The name of the festival was “space”, which is what the organisers wanted to create for contemporary music, for music which they like and which they would like to play, and which was not performed on concert podiums: for traditional halls it was too new and for contemporary music festivals it was too old. It opened up a space for a new generation of musicians who began to devote themselves passionately to the performance of contemporary and 20th century music. The first years of the festival were held in Slovakia (in Bratislava, Modra, Topoľčany, Žilina and other towns), and in various towns in Belgium and the Netherlands. The concerts attracted special support from the Royal Conservatory in Ghent and helped the Slovak section of the ISCM expand its contacts abroad. One of the festival’s specific features was also that the concerts were preceded by words of introduction and even lectures on the music being performed at the concert, usually given by the participating artists themselves. The accompanying introductions to the concert sometimes lasted up to one hour. The Slovak music concert in the Great Hall of the Cirkev Bratská church was a memorable occasion, with over 80 visitors listening to the pre-concert talk. The festival brought musical portraits of England, Hungary, Russia and America, the premiere of Jevgenij Iršai’s suite Schönberg Variations (Air with 30 Variations) as well as several unforgettable concerts with the clarinettist Pedro Guridi, the violinist Paul Klinck and the soprano Gerrie de Vries.

~ Ivan Šiller