JOHN CAGE: Sonatas & Interludes / Immersive Concert / Premiere

Sixteen sonatas and four interludes cut in half. This is written improvisation that explores the sound of the piano using screws, bolts, pieces of plastic, and rubber. Its essence is not to be against, but to look deeper, beyond the horizon. Therefore, over time, materials and means may change, and this will be the reconciled version of Sonatas and Interludes. It is music stretched between the East and the West. From the West flows melody and phrase, from the East taste and raga. Taste (rasa) is flavor, aroma, essence, while raga is desire and pleasure. Indian art operates in nine tastes-emotions (navarasa), which are: joy, surprise, love, courage, anger, fear, disgust, and sadness. The ninth, the most important, is tranquility.

The performance will be recorded live by cameras placed around the piano, capturing subtle body movements, facial expressions, and interactions with the instrument. In real time, the video recordings will be processed and displayed on several screens distributed throughout the space, becoming a living part of the visual narrative. One can sit, lie down, walk, stand, look through sound, and hear through image—freely.

MARTYNA ZAKRZEWSKA: A pianist, soloist, and chamber musician dedicated to the music of the 20th and 21st centuries, Dr. Zakrzewska is a teacher with a sense of mission, driven by the spirit of a yogi. She studied in Racibórz, Rybnik, Kraków, and Cologne.

She is a recipient of a special award at the 10th Competition of 20th and 21st Century Music for Young Performers in Radziejowice and second prize at the 23rd Concorso Luigi Nono. She has been awarded the Minister of Culture and National Heritage Scholarship and the Scholarship of the President of Kraków. She has performed at the University of Music in Graz, WDR, Deutschlandfunk, Universität der Künste in Berlin, Lviv Philharmonic, Świętokrzyska Philharmonic, and the Witold Lutosławski Polish Radio Studio, with the National Symphony Orchestra of Polish Radio (NOSPR).

She has appeared at many festivals, including Wien Modern, Acht Brücken, the International Contemporary Music Festival “Warsaw Autumn,” the Witold Lutosławski Festival “Łańcuch,” Sacrum Profanum, MUSICA MODERNA, Audio Art, Unsound, NeoArte, and TRZY-CZTE-RY. She has premiered works by composers including Andrzej Kwieciński, Artur Zagajewski, Cezary Duchnowski, Joanna Woźny, Jarosław Płonka, Jacek Sotomski, Marta Śniady, Anna Sowa, Nina Fukuoka, and Żaneta Rydzewska.

She has actively participated in Impuls Academy, EWCM, International Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, Ostrava Days, and Stockhausen-kurse Kürten, as well as in workshops with the Ensemble Musikfabrik, Ensemble Modern, and ensemble recherche. Since 2022, she has led her own piano class as part of the subsequent editions of the Summer Courses of New Music for Performers in Bydgoszcz. She teaches contemporary music courses at her home academy in Kraków.

Rediscovering Polish music, she encountered the work of Barbara Buczek, which resulted in the premiere of a project featuring all of the composer’s piano works at the Sacrum Profanum festival in 2021.

ALEKSANDRA OŁDAK: A visual artist, graphic designer, and graduate of the Faculty of Graphic Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. She operates in the realms of 2D and 3D graphics and their hybrids, creating visualizations and installations for performances and concerts, experimenting and perfecting her skills in creating parameterized spaces with a strong emphasis on integrating movement with sound.
Her video works have been showcased at events such as Sacrum Profanum (Kraków), the International Contemporary Music Festival “Warsaw Autumn” (Warsaw), NeoArte — Art Synthesizer (Gdańsk), the Festival of Tradition and Musical Avant-Garde KODY (Lublin), Daegu Contemporary Music Festival (South Korea), and DEMO (Netherlands).