ONDINE (Thomas Bloch – ondes martenot, Nina Prešiček – piano)

Secondary school and university students as well as senior citizens are entitled to purchase one advance ticket (not on the day of the event) per event at a 20 % discount, only at Kino Šiška box office. A limited amount of discount tickets available!

Ondine

Thomas Bloch - ondes martenot
Nina Prešiček – piano
Neven Korda – video

Featured at the concert will be a 1920's instrument that can only be heard very rarely in Slovenia. Ondes martenot or Ondes musicales, which translates as music waves, is an early electronic instrument invented by Maurice Martenot in 1928. Its audio capabilities range from astral and etheric to strong piercing sounds. It is due to this specific sonority that many composers would explore the instrument.

It has been used in various music genres from contemporary classical music (Messiaen, Murail) to soundtracks (Elmer Bernstein, Takashi Harada) and popular music (Radiohead, Godzilla, Björk...). Tomas Bloch is one of the great masters of this and other exotic instruments like Benjamin Franklin's glass harmonica and the Hammond organ...

As wonderfully as his instrumetns sound, as diverse is his repertoar. It comprises more than just works of classical and contemporary classical music, as he also collaborates with pop musicians like:

Björk/All Neon Like/Homogenic/glass harmonica

Radiohead / How to disappear completely/Kid A/ondes martenot



MERGEFORMATINET Jonny Greenwood & Thomas Bloch

Thomas Bloch and Thom Yorke
(Radiohead)

Gorillaz/Monkey/Journey to the West



Thomas Bloch and
Damon Albarn
(Gorillaz)
live with the onde martenot

Tom Waits/Bob Wilson/The Black Rider…


The event has been initiated by the Slovenian piano player Nina Prešiček. Lately she has been providing Slovenian classical venues with a breathe of fresh air and uncovering the forgotten and new Slovenian and foreign contemporary classical music with her energetic and sensual performances. Desiring to explore new dimensions in sound she invited Thomas Bloch to co-operate with her.

The audience will witness the merge of three diverse audio sources – the piano, ondes martenot and sound tape. The music will be placed into an abstract video environment designed by Neven Korda, a renowned Slovenian video artist.

The concert programme consists of avant-garde and post-avantgarde 20th century music that has inspired many contemporary composers and elelctronic musicians (Aphex Twin, Autechre and Sonic Youth).
The project is a cooperation of The Society of Slovenian Composers/UNICUM 2010 International contemporary music festival and Kino Šiška.


Programme:

B. Parmegiani: Outremer (ondes martenot/tape)
L. Nono: Sofferte onde serene (piano/tape) HYPERLINK "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQlLDE1tymo" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQlLDE1tymo

T. Murail: Tigres de verre (ondes martenot/piano)
J.R. Combes Damien : Chant d'Atalyante (ondes martenot)
E. Rolin : Space Birds (ondes martenot/piano/tape)
T. Bloch: Formule (ondes martenot)

CV Nina Prešiček

The pianist Nina Prešiček, born in Kranj on 03/12/1976, graduated in 2000, and in 2003 she completed her postgraduate studies at the Music Academy in Stuttgart, mentored by professor Wolfgang Bloser. At the same time, 2003 she completed her postgraduate studies at the “Perfection” department of Toulouse National Conservatories (France) in the class of Thérèse Dussaut. In 2005 she completed her master studies of musicology at Sorbonne, Paris.

Nina improved her skills at master classes led by Jörg Demus (Vienna), Arbo Valdme (Köln), John Perry (Los Angeles), and Dominique Merlet (Paris)… At the time she was receiving scholarships from Zois Fund of the Republic of Slovenia, Rotary Club, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the French Government. In 2007, she acquired the prestigious scholarship of the international foundation Nadia and Lili Boulanger from Paris.

She has received several awards at various competitions (international chamber competition Pierre Lantier, Paris -3eme Grand Prix, second prize at a federal competition in Germany, etc.). She has been collaborating on a regular basis as a soloist and chamber musician in Germany, France, Slovenia and elsewhere. Her major concerts include a solo recital in the grand hall of the Slovenian Philharmonie, a concert in the Czech Rudolfinum Philharmonie (Prague), a concert with Stuttgart youth orchestra, an African tour with Anian trio (Eritrea), the concert week: Sanje, Noč in Molitev / Dreams, Night and Prayer – M. Bekavec and friends, a solo recital within the series Predihano / Breathed by Cankarjev Dom, a solo recital at Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, a concert with Aventure ensemble at Freiburg Festival of contemporary music (Germany), The Night of Slovenian Composers, a series of five piano recitals in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro), the appearance on 1st May 2004 in Paris as Slovenia joined the EU and the appearance at the World Saxophone Congress in Montreal (Canada) and Minneapolis (USA), where she performed the works of Slovenian compositions for the first time, This was followed by concerts at Warsaw Autumn, at the international Rostrum of Composers in Belgrade, Croix Baragnon in Toulouse, Concert Atelier by the Society of Slovenian Composers, Kogoj Days, World Music days etc.

Since 2003 she has been a regular member of the Slavko Osterc Trio performing at concert stages in Slovenia and elsewhere. 2005 saw the release of their first CD dedicated entirely to Slovenian reproduction of older and younger generations. She also participated in recording an original album celebrating the 80th anniversary of the composer Uroš Krek. In 2008, the CD DIVISIOS by RTV Slovenia was released, where she appears as a soloist alongside the members of RTV orchestra conducted by Jürg Wyttenbach. Last year her first solo CD, “Vdih Časa / A Breath of Time” was released in cooperation with RTV Slovenia and the ZKP label, dedicated to contemporary Slovenian and foreign music.

Recently she has been dedicating much of her time to chamber music in collaboration with several renowned domestic and foreign musicians, such as Mats Lidström, Matej Šarc, David Hall Johnson, Mate Bekavac, Patricia Kopačinskaja, Igor Mitrovič, Aleš Kacjan etc. Her solo-recitals are mostly dedicated to the music of the 20th and 21st centuries. She was therefore invited to the composer's forum at the University of Rio de Janeiro, where she presented French spectral music. This year she had the honour to execute the first performance of Lebič's concert for piano and orchestra in Germany (Jaener Philharmonie) and in Gallus Hall, Slovenia with RTV Slovenia radio orchestra.

CV Thomas Bloch

Biography by Joseph Stevenson

Thomas Bloch is a keyboard artist who plays a remarkable variety of instruments, including the electronic Ondes Martenot, the Hammond Organ, and Benjamin Franklin's Glass Harmonica. He is also a composer; in both capacities he works in a diverse variety of genres.

He attended the Paris Conservatory, where he studied with Jeanne Loriod (sister-in-law of Olivier Messiaen and wife of the inventor of the Ondes Martenot) and other teachers including Marc Honegger, Andrès, Cochet, and Walther. He took an interest in various sorts of rare instruments, including the glass harmonica and the Cristal Baschet. He graduated from the Conservatory with a First Prize.

He was an early participant in the revival of the glass harmonica that followed the introduction in 1982 of an improved design for the instrument by Boston-based German glassblower Gerhard Finkenbeiner, which uses pure quartz glass in the shape of a cylinder that tapers progressively from wide to narrow bowl shapes. Bloch is a curator of the collection of the Museum of Music at the Cité de la Musique of Paris, and regularly gives concerts using the unusual instruments housed there. He is also Professor of Ondes Martenot at the Strasbourg Conservatory.

He gained considerable attention in 1984 when he performed, by himself, a complete performance of Erik Satie's Vexations, a piano piece that appears short on paper but carries an instruction that it is to be repeated incessantly for twenty-four hours.

He performs in virtually all musical genres, including classical music, music for theatre and dance, commercials, jazz, rock, popular song, and light and sound shows. He is also a composer and arranger in many of these genres, and operates a twenty-four-track recording studio.

Since beginning his performing career in the 1980s, he has played well over 1500 concerts and participated in forty compact discs. These include collections of music written for the glass harmonica by composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, and Donizetti and the Ondes Martenot part in Olivier Messiaen's giant symphony Turangalila, both on the Naxos label, and Marcel Landowski's Messe de l'Aurore. He has made records with the Balanescu Quartet, Jacques Chailly, Jad Wio, Phil Minton, Coba (the accordion play for Björk), Philippe Sarde, Lindsay Cooper, Fabrice Di Falco, Rita Mitusko, and Adèle B. He has won the SACEM recording prize, and besides Naxos has appeared on the Columbia, Sony Classical, K 617, TGB and Erol Records labels. He has also won the François de Roubaix First Prize in Composition.

He is a member of several ensembles, including Le Quatour d'Ondes Martenot de Paris, the Bloch-Wilson Piano Duo, the Brussels Virtuosi, Arthur H and the Bachibouzouk Band, Fine Tuning, the John Cage Ensemble, and Cabaret Sauvage. His predilection for ringing sounds has made him a song accompanist for sopranos, and as a composer he has written works for what he calls the "crystal voice" of an all-soprano choir.

He composes under six pseudonyms in addition to his own name. He composed the score of the film The Tango Lesson and several other films, and writes music for spectacles, composing and appearing, for instance, in the festivities opening the EuroDisney theme park in France.

Bloch appears regularly wt the Festival Mondial de l'Image Sous Marine d'Antibes, in the U.S., Europe, and Japan, and on various television and radio stations around the world. These include solo performances at La Scala in Milan, the Opéra of Paris, the Festival de la Chaise Dieu, the Pablo Casals Festival, and with the Grenoble Instrumental Ensemble, the Lorraine Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Capitole de Toulouse, and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam.

LINKS:

http://www.ninapresicek.com/
http://thomasbloch.chez.com/

Everything on ondes martenot
http://www.nme.com/video/id/1LobZ8vg9qE/search/martenot