Music Cooperative

Artur Zagajewski: […]! (2023, WP / Commission of the Darmstadt Summer Course and Spółdzielnia Muzyczna)

Nina Fukuoka: Polka is a Czech dance (2023, WP / Commission of the Darmstadt Summer Course and Spółdzielnia Muzyczna)

Monika Szpyrka: Wallflower (2023, WP / Composed within the framework of The Creative Scholarship of the City of Krakow)

Rafał Ryterski: Birdsongs (2023, WP)

Spółdzielnia Muzyczna Contemporary Ensemble

The Polish ensemble Spółdzielnia Muzyczna is one of the young ensembles of the moment: experimental, flexible, communicative, fearless, hands-on. All qualities that are not only appreciated by more and more organizers, also on international stages, but that also convinced the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation: Spółdzielnia Muzyczna was awarded the foundation’s “Ensemble Prize” in 2021. And speaking of hands-on, the name Spółdzielnia Muzyczna means music cooperative. This year, the Krakow-based ensemble is one of the ensembles-in-residence at the Darmstadt Summer Course, thus returning to an important place of its founding days: a project of the European Workshop for Contemporary Music, a program of the German Music Council, at the 2014 Summer Course motivated the musicians to work together continuously from then on.

In two concerts as well as a workshop with reading sessions of young composers, Ensemble Spółdzielnia Muzyczna can fully display its energy in its Darmstadt debut. The second concert of our ensemble-in-residence is also an artistic business card of Spółdzielnia Muzyczna and its home country Poland: all four composers live and work there. Four pieces that directly correspond to the artistic practice and self-image of the ensemble. Four world premieres with works by Rafał Ryterski, Monika Szpyrka, Artur Zagajewski and Nina Fukuoka. Artur Zagajewski’s work is conceived more as an installation, while the pieces by Rafał Ryterski, Monika Szpyrka and Nina Fukuoka are inspired by flocks of birds as a symbol of necessary changes in human life or by objects of everyday life.

With the friendly support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation and The Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation