{"id":3137,"date":"2023-05-31T11:07:56","date_gmt":"2023-05-31T11:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iscm-slovakia.org\/?p=3137"},"modified":"2024-01-18T11:09:44","modified_gmt":"2024-01-18T11:09:44","slug":"matej-sloboda-interviews-with-musicians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iscm-slovakia.org\/en\/aktuality\/matej-sloboda-interviews-with-musicians\/","title":{"rendered":"Matej Sloboda \u2013 interviews with musicians"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Matej Sloboda - rozhovory s hudobn\u00edkmi, ISCM - Slovensk\u00e1 sekcia\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4O7eWfeiloA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Tom\u00e1\u0161 Boro\u0161: \u201cMatej Sloboda \u2013 composer, artistic director of <em>EnsembleSpectrum<\/em>. In such profile interviews we try to avoid chronology of studies \u2013 that after finishing this school he moved on to the next one and so on. But I would make an exception with you, because both you\u2019re a young artist and you\u2019re close to all those study times, and I would say you\u2019re also a study type, because every time we meet you tell me about a workshop you\u2019ve been to, what you\u2019ve studied, and so on. And also, because your study path was very varied \u2013 just mentioning the cities and places where you completed your studies after the Academy of Performing Arts \u2013 Vienna, Graz, Brno, Berlin. So how about you \u2013 have you finished your studies? Is this established composer already finished with studying or are you an eternal student?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Matej Sloboda: \u201cI, personally, think that in this field one cannot say that one is already a graduate. Even if it\u2019s not at school or under someone else\u2019s guidance, we still want to educate ourselves because if we stayed in that pension of information that we have and that we got at 25 and froze there, we probably wouldn\u2019t get very far. I mean, at least I don\u2019t feel like I\u2019m \u201cdone\u201d or anything like that, and I don\u2019t think I ever will be, because there are so many beautiful things and beautiful themes that are not only in music, but also in art and in the world in general, in life, that one lifetime is not enough to encompass all that knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T. B.: \u201cSo the answer is eternal student?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. S.: \u201cI guess so, and I don\u2019t take it pejoratively.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T. B.: \u201cIf we were to go through the individual places \u2013 what did your thinking look like during or after your studies at the Academy of Performing Arts \u2013 where to go into the world?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. S.: \u201cI am a person who usually has some plans or visions, but those plans are mostly vague. Everything that I have experienced has come more from the spontaneity of the moment. When I came to the Academy of Performing Arts to Ivan Buffa\u2019s class, I knew that I definitely wanted to go on some Erasmus during my studies, but I had no idea that I would go in my second year, for example. It was on the basis of a recommendation from my professor. As we got to know each other over that, let\u2019s say, first month or month and a half, I realised that the school where he was studying was extremely interesting. He was actually kind of the \u2018kicker\u2019, encouraging me to go and soak up information elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T. B.: \u201cWas that Vienna?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. S.: \u201cYes, it was Vienna \u2013 Erasmus already in the second year in the summer semester. I stayed with Detlev M\u00fcller-Siemens and there I also met Konstantin Ilievsky, with whom I have been collaborating artistically for several years now. Then, of course, I went back to the Academy of Performing Arts and went to Graz for my master\u2019s degree, and simultaneously was at the Academy of Performing Arts. There I was under the guidance of Beat Furrer and others, like Georg Friedrich Haas, he taught us on a seminar and we had various listening sessions on contemporary music.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T. B.: \u201cThen it was Brno \u2013 doctoral studies?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. S.: \u201cYes, Brno with Ivo Medko and also UDK in Berlin with Marc Sabat and others.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T. B.: \u201cEven though you have all this behind you, we come back to the fact that you are not finished yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. S.: \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s possible to end this when, as I said, there are so many interesting things and interesting people that you want to spend time with, that you want to exchange knowledge with \u2013 maybe even equally over time.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T. B.: \u201cConstant study is relevant for every composer, but I would say that maybe especially for you even more so, because your music works with microintervals, with microtonality, with acoustics, with the specifics of sound, tuning and so on. This way of composing and thinking musically especially requires constant study and maybe that theoretical background.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. S.: \u201cCertainly, also in the interpretative sense. I often encounter the opinion that let\u2019s go back to the virtual Primary Music school, let\u2019s learn music and the perception of interval anew, especially in the context of pure tuning. I think that\u2019s true, because those ideas of intervals as such that are around us \u2013 in terms of equal temperament and similar tuning methods \u2013 is slightly different and perhaps considerably deformed. Although we have it quite naturally in us and it\u2019s quite achievable and therefore convenient for many\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T. B.: \u201cWe\u2019ve already messed up our ears.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. S.: \u201cI wouldn\u2019t even say that we messed them up, but rather we forgot about it. But it\u2019s always there and it can be learned. Basically, anything can be learned, you just have to put the time into it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T. B.: \u201cSo it\u2019s a challenge for me too \u2013 to go back to the virtual Primary Music school and deal with intervals in natural tuning, because it\u2019s not easy. To give you a little better idea, you told me a funny story that could be very interesting. You said that you were at this workshop where you and a few guys got together in some gym and you were singing in natural tuning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. S.: \u201cYes, yes, it was in a small town in the south of Estonia \u2013 P\u00e4rnu. It was an activity of the Estonian Sch\u00f6nberg Association. Specifically, we didn\u2019t sing completely in pure tuning, but we practiced singing in an even-tempered 22-tone system, which has many interesting intervals found even in pure tuning, but like any even-tempered system has some of its ills and compromises.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T. B.: \u201cAnd how did you do? Can it be intoned?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. S.: \u201cOur aim, as the leader of the ensemble, Hans-Gauner Lock, also said, was not to achieve total clarity within the ten days during which we practiced it, but to strive for quality \u2013 to find the means, methods and ways in which it can be taught. Of course, when we play on pure tuning instruments, tempered intervals that are similar to pure tuning intervals, we will naturally tune naturally \u2013 that is, to pure tuning. Only if we have a fixed instrument like an organ or a piano that is tuned to it, of course we will tune it in some way, like when a choir sings or a string quartet plays with a piano. Actually, anything that has a fixed tuning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T. B.: \u201cSo it\u2019s not illegitimate \u2013 natural tuning is supposed to be natural, that is, maybe not always completely accurate?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. S.: \u201cIt is precisely the advantage of pure tuning that many intervals, even if they contain difficult intervals, are tuneable by ear \u2013 and that is its beauty. But why they chose 22-EDO, as an even-tempered tuning, is because of some of its qualities that they like \u2013 that\u2019s how I would sum it up, I don\u2019t want to get too much into \u2018technicalities\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T. B.: \u201cThis is also the area that defines the specificity and peculiarity of your musical poetics \u2013 how did you and microintervals meet and how did this love come about?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. S.: \u201cI think this love was created as it sometimes happens \u2013 by a strange coincidence. For example, I started composing in general when I got my hands on a copy of Sibelius 4 or a similar archaic version. One summer I had nothing to do, so I said I was going to arrange a piece I was playing in a band for \u201corchestra\u201d. I had no idea, but I didn\u2019t really care at the time \u2013 I didn\u2019t even consider being a composer. Well, a Sibelius like that can guide you \u2013 it\u2019s got different quarter tones, unfortunately, primarily just those, but you start to at least somehow become familiar with the fact that there\u2019s another sound out there. It was always so strange to me when I sang with the piano \u2013 I\u2019m singing something else, and how is it possible that I can\u2019t find it on the piano? After all, I can sing it. Then during my studies, G\u00e9rard Grisey\u2019s music came into my life, which I think is very \u2018door-opening\u2019 \u2013 it doesn\u2019t bring microintervality in the kind of, slightly unnatural way that, for example, H\u00e1ba does. H\u00e1ba is a very interesting composer, he has interesting concepts, but in my opinion it\u2019s more post-romantic music, with microintervality \u201ccrammed\u201d on top of it \u2013 playing with quarter tones and sixth tones. By starting from pure tuning, Grisey suddenly makes it a completely different sound world. Of course, James Tenney, R\u0103dulescu, and then everyone else, for example, but I think it was the French spectralists who were the most dominant in this direction for quite a long time. Then I discovered Ben Johnston \u2013 he was an American composer who was almost exclusively devoted to pure tuning. And of course, Henry Partch, and then other names, going more and more into pure tuning.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T. B.: \u201cSo, besides these names and specific inspirations, it was also, to use from pedagogy, a kind of \u201cproblem-based teaching\u201d. Your curiosity and willingness to solve problems played a role. You\u2019ve now asked some questions yourself \u2013 how is it possible that I can sing something else and not be able to play it on the piano and so on. So somehow your search looked like that too.<br>When a person listens to your work, they get the feeling that you\u2019ve found what works for you and that you\u2019re comfortable with it. Sometimes it\u2019s also nice that one song flows into another, it\u2019s like you\u2019re writing one big, never-ending song. We\u2019ve talked mostly about the microintervals in your music, but it\u2019s also static music that develops very subtly. There\u2019s a lot going on, but maybe not at first hearing. Is that really the case? Do you feel that way too, that it&#8217;s music that really suits you, that you\u2019ve found yourself in it and that you\u2019re likely to be in it for a long time?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. S.: \u201cIt\u2019s definitely one of the music types that I\u2019m extremely comfortable with, otherwise I wouldn\u2019t write like that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T. B.: \u201cSome composers have their own handwriting, but at the same time they have a constant restlessness in themselves \u2013 that they still want it somehow different. With you, on the other hand, I feel such a calmness that for now it\u2019s what you have grasped. Of course, when you write a new song, you have a lot of things, solutions, searchings, room for originality, but at the same time, some kind of certainty?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. S.: \u201cIt\u2019s true that in some aspects the feeling of repetition or the principle of the return of a method is present \u2013 if we were to talk specifically, for example, about a series of pieces that have no title \u2013 the \u201ccrutch\u201d, the support, the conceptual basis of these currently seven scores is that they have to be written on one particular A4 page of paper with twelve systems, i.e., notation outlines.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T. B.: \u201cDespite the fact that they last, let\u2019s say, 20 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. S.: \u201cThe last one lasts an hour. In terms of how we measure the length of each segment, it doesn\u2019t matter if I break it down. Obviously not completely, but from my point of view I don\u2019t need to do that extreme micromanagement because I don\u2019t think it adds a fundamental additive sense to the piece and it can take one\u2019s attention away from it. For example, when I write a one-hour piece in the classic way \u2013 focusing on the rhythm, the ligatures, and the overall micromanagement \u2013 it can take me down a different path, because suddenly, for example, I\u2019ll come up with a new micromotive that I\u2019 more interested in, and that will take me away from the goal, which might be to create a process, for example. I think that such an unifying element, regardless of whether it\u2019s a micromanaged piece of music or such a one-page score or even a verbal score, is the building of a process. From a music-theoretical perspective, one could argue that this is something I picked up from Reich, for example. I, personally, feel more of the Grisey there, which is also about a unified process where you can feel a certain direction towards a goal \u2013 it goes there until it gets there and then something else happens. That\u2019s very close to my heart \u2013 having that goal set out, where it\u2019s going, how it\u2019s going to end and what exactly is going to happen there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T. B.: \u201cTo muddle things up even more \u2013 but we\u2019re going very deep already\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. S.: \u201cLet\u2019s go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T. B.: \u201cDoes what you said mean that in addition to what\u2019s contained there, it\u2019s also beautiful in the way it evolves \u2013 the process itself? Maybe it could be seen as more of an act or gesture \u2013 but not a gesture in the romantic sense \u2013 compared to music in the classical sense, where I\u2019m looking for individual elements, development, form, and so on?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. S.: \u201cThe development and the form are there\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T. B.: \u201cI would say that everything is there, as in Chopin, for example, but on the other hand \u2013 is it also beautiful in its structure, logic or rational flow, even though there is also emotion?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. S.: \u201cDefinitely. A composer, Rapha\u00ebl Cendo, once told me that I should try to find a balance between Dionysus and Apollo. He said he felt that I was more on the rational side, but I, personally, feel that there is also the emotional side, because that decides how the music will work, that is, how it will sound, and how it will be perceived. What procedures or calculations I use to do that is basically a secondary thing that just achieves that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T. B.: \u201cMaybe it\u2019s not only your own bipolarity, but also the listener\u2019s \u2013 the listener can also perceive it as a sound, a musical colour, but at the same time somebody sees beauty in rationality and in these things, so maybe we can perceive your composition in a double way like that.<br>A very important part of your musical profile is <em>EnsembleSpectrum<\/em>, which you founded and are also its artistic director. It\u2019s nice that even though we have several ensembles in Slovakia that are dedicated to contemporary music, <em>Spectrum <\/em>is recognizable. It has found, like we\u2019ve talked about your work, its area and space where it feels comfortable and does it well. Can we say what is recognizable, typical and characteristic of <em>EnsembleSpectrum<\/em> and on what basis do we safely recognize it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. S.: \u201cWell, you tell me, I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T. B.: \u201cThat was pretty sneaky.\u201d (laughs)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. S.: \u201cIt\u2019s, in my opinion, quite difficult to evaluate. There have been over 130 different songs in the last ten years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T. B.: \u201cIt should be said that you have recently celebrated your 10<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary. Yes, the pieces were really different, but one gets the feeling of such a unifying mindset \u2013 both in dramaturgy and in interpretation. Do you have that defined for yourself?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. S.: \u201cI know where the ensemble should be \u2013 dramaturgically. I think one of the things I enjoy doing with my bandmates is to stand somewhere in the middle \u2013 I don\u2019t want to say \u201cbe a bridge between one and the other\u201d, because that\u2019s quite profane in these days and in society \u2013 but to be a kind of intersection between contemporary composed music and more open, looser, perhaps improvised, aesthetically slightly differently conceived music.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T. B.: \u201cWhat about the spectrum in the title?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. S.: \u201cSpectralism certainly has its firm position there. <em>EnsembleSpectrum <\/em>was formed during my second year in college when one of my dreams was to seriously play Grisey, who really is one of my biggest role models, and we\u2019ve done that over the last ten years, and hopefully we\u2019ll be able to do that again sometime in the future. I think that in addition to spectrality per se, the word is also inclusive \u2013 it offers open arms. We\u2019re not going to say to someone who writes explicitly tonal music \u2013 but good explicitly tonal music \u2013 no, we\u2019re not going to play you because you\u2019re not in our \u201cscope\u201d aesthetic. Quite the opposite. For example, today we had a jury for our new album \u2013 this whole \u201ccall for scores\u201d thing was invented to discover other writers outside of my own scope. Of course, I have some tastes of my own and tend to be friends with probably similar people. If someone started telling me the complete opposite, perhaps even aggressively, there probably wouldn\u2019t be any interaction.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T. B.: \u201cThat is to say, in addition to what you are characterized by and what you tend to do, you try to go beyond your limits, and thus expand the spectrum, as you have it in the title.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. S.: \u201cBecause I know I have my own limits. I think the call took its toll because we got 117 composers from all over the world, and we had to choose six of them. There was really a cadre and that\u2019s great, because that way we\u2019re not going to close ourselves off in some \u201cbubbles\u201d of our own. That\u2019s actually the worst thing an artist can do \u2013 and probably a human being too. I don\u2019t just mean in a local bubble \u2013 Bratislava or Slovakia \u2013 but also in an European bubble. For example, I would love to get to know young composers from Argentina, but I don\u2019t because I haven\u2019t met them in any way. And this is the way to get to know the music and play it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T. B.: \u201cSo I wish you to be able to expand the bubbles and the spectrum to new discoveries \u2013 in your <em>EnsembleSpectrum <\/em>and in your compositional activity. May you continue to make the miracle that I see in your music being very challenging, but at the same time forging a path by reaching out to people. Proof of this, for example, is that you were even nominated in two categories at the Radio Head Awards \u2013 in both experimental and classical music. It\u2019s music that should normally only appeal to a few people, but you manage to appeal to a really wider audience. I\u2019m verry happy that contemporary music is alive in this way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. S.: \u201cThank you very much.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tom\u00e1\u0161 Boro\u0161: \u201cMatej Sloboda \u2013 composer, artistic director of EnsembleSpectrum. In such profile interviews we try to avoid chronology of studies \u2013 that after finishing this school he moved on to the next one and so on. But I would make an exception with you, because both you\u2019re a young artist and you\u2019re close to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3133,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,33],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iscm-slovakia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3137"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iscm-slovakia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iscm-slovakia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iscm-slovakia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iscm-slovakia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iscm-slovakia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3138,"href":"https:\/\/iscm-slovakia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3137\/revisions\/3138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iscm-slovakia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iscm-slovakia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iscm-slovakia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iscm-slovakia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}