The concert is dedicated to the memory of the forty children drowned during World War II on Mendlovo náměstí (20 November 1944). The concert will feature the world premières of two commissioned compositions, Adagio for Orchestra by Adrián Demoč and the meditative Exercise of Breath and Spirit by Pavel Zlámal. Clarinettist Marek Švejkar will perform the Czech première of Domaines by Pierre Boulez and the final performance will be the somewhat atypical Actions by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki.
The tragic events of the ill-fated American air raid on Brno in November 1944 caused an enormous amount of suffering. Hundreds died, thousands were left homeless. One of the two and a half thousand bombs destroyed a steam pipe, flooding several cellars in which the people of Brno had taken shelter from the air raid. Many managed to escape the boiling water, but forty children from the German school on Mendlovo náměstí were not so lucky. They breathed their last and after 1945 there were not many people left in Brno to remember them. The concert will take place on 20 November 2024 at 7:00 p.m. at the Orlovna on Mendlovo náměstí.
"The entire 2024-25 concert season of the Brno Contemporary Orchestra makes for intense, perceptive and often panicky listening, for which there is very little time in everyday life. Music has become a noise that surrounds us whether we like it nor not, and becomes a superfluous or necessary backdrop to other activities. It’s difficult and more or less impractical to just sit down and do nothing but listen. Perhaps that’s why we sought inspiration from doctors, who don’t listen just to hear, but to infer results from what they hear, and who, through years of experience, already know the best places to listen.... Music, however, is an abstract sound space, with a process and structure of its own; it is an open code from which we do not have to derive concrete results or identify a medical or psychological condition, but can remain in that indescribable virtual space of playing with glass beads. We hope that while listening with bated breath, we will think of how it’s better to be a good person than a bad and evil one", explains Viktor Pantůček, the man behind of the BCO dramaturgical concept.
"The fact that I’m still alive (I’m 81 years old) is down to the famous Brno singer Milan Chladil, who was in the cellar next to us. He managed to get out himself and told the firefighters that the pupils next door were in a bad way. The fire department got us out in time. About half an hour later our cellar was flooded with boiling water from the broken district heater. Without Milan, we wouldn’t have survived, and would have shared the fate of the pupils of the German school in Staré Brno opposite the brewery. A lot of children died there...," says Vlastimil Čoupek, who survived the tragedy (2014).
"I was lucky enough to save the life of a player from the orchestra by giving him a heart massage during a concert rehearsal. It’s not an easy decision, but it must be made quickly. There’s no time for heroics or wondering whether you can do it or not. You have no other option, it’s your duty. The horrors that befell us on Mendlovo náměstí exactly eighty years ago are also part of our lives and we should know about them and remind ourselves that life is a gift worth fighting for," says artistic director and conductor Pavel Šnajdr.
ADRIAN DEMOČ: Adagio for Orchestra (commissioned by the BCO)
PIERRE BOULEZ: Domaines, for clarinet and ensemble (1961-1968)
PAVEL ZLÁMAL: Exercise of Breath and Spirit (commissioned by the BCO)
KRZYZSTOF PENDERECKI: Actions for Free Jazz Orchestra (1971)
MAREK ŠVEJKAR clarinet
BRNO CONTEMPORARY ORCHESTRA conducted by PAVEL ŠNAJDR
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