Between Grids (Ostravské proluky) was commissioned by the Jantar Awards and premiered there by Miroslav Beinhauer on April 22nd, 2024.

This collaboration with Mongolian musicians from the group Dunjingarav was produced by Konektiv, an annual event bringing together Czech and international musicians.

Curated by Pavel Kraus & Ewelina Vlček-Chiu

Lighting Design – Tasya Nafigina

Video – vmlze, Opin & Filip

Mix and Mastering – Vladimír Srb

"Not the same, not different" for sixth-tone harmonium was written for Miroslav Beinhauer and premiered by him at the Ostrava Days festival on August 24th 2023.

The piece was included on the CD "Pieces For Sixth​-​Tone Harmonium" on the Sub Rosa label.

Listen here.

Interstices is a piece for solo sixth-tone harmonium commissioned by MicroFest Prague 2023. The piece was premiered by and is dedicated to Miroslav Beinhauer.

Hanzelkazikmund (Zde jsou lvi) is a Czech-language performance directed by Adam Svozil with music and sound design by Ian Mikyska produced by Činoherní studio Ústí nad Labem.

You can listen to the soundtrack at this link.

Three Snows for Four (Tři sněhy pro čtyři) is a chamber piece inspired by and intended to be exhibited alongside a series of photographs by Marie Kratochvílová titled Sněhy (Snows). The piece was written for an exhibition titled Five Uncertain Situations, co-organised by the Prague City Gallery and the Prague Quiet Music Collective and curated by Jitka Hlaváčková and Ian Mikyska. 

You can listen to the whole album or the individual pieces, i.e. Snow no. 1, no. 2, and no. 3.

You can also follow this link to a page that shows all the composed works, all the artworks that inspired them, as well as links to the scores and the exhibition catalogue.

Shan shui is a piece for bass clarinet and percussion solo with orchestral accompaniment, commissioned by the Ostrava Center for New Music to be performed by the Ostrava New Orchestra and conducted by Petr Kotík. The piece was premiered at the DOX+ Hall in Prague on November 15th, 2022. The two soloists were Irvin Venyš (double bass) and Martin Opršál (percussion). 

The Chinese term used for the title literally means "mountain water", but it refers to the traditional form of Chinese landscape painting, extending the calligraphic inspirations of the earlier piece between mists (brushstrokes) into a more complex web of metaphors and the large-scale canvas of the orchestra.

Click on MORE below for the video.

The Signature of Certain Things (Signatura některých věcí) is a video by visual artist Zbyněk Baladrán with music, sound, translation, and voice over by Ian Mikyska, commissioned by the Gandy Gallery and first shown there in September 2022.

Our previous works with Zbyněk are: In Praise of Dialectics, One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, Catastrophe, Powerless Source of All Power, and To be framed.

Click on MORE below for the video.

In which things are neither the same nor different is a piece for large ensemble, electronics, and light design, commissioned by the Berg Orchestra and their conductor Peter Vrábel first performed by the group on May 9th, 2022 at Gabriel Loci, a former monastery in Prague. 

The light design for the piece is by the composer and Pavel Havrda.

Click on MORE below for the video.

Strands is a 45-minute audio piece created in collaboration with Berlin-based composer and musician Fredrik Rasten commissioned by the Radiocustica section at Czech Radio.

between mists (brushstrokes) is a chamber piece written for the Prague Quiet Music Festival 2021 and performed there by the Prague Quiet Music Collective.

The piece is based on the basic metaphor of the bowstroke as a brushstroke and is inspired by Chinese and Japanese traditional landscape painting and calligraphy.

Click on MORE below to listen.

In is a piece for Alois Hába's sixth-tone harmonium, which is kept at the Czech Museum of Music in Prague, and fixed electronics. The piece was written for Miroslav Beinhauer, currently the only player on the instrument.

The premiere took place at the Convent of St. Agnes as part of the Strings of Autumn festival in October 2021, at a concert co-organised by the Ostrava Center for New Music and the Prague Quiet Music Collective.

Click on MORE below to listen.

In Praise of Dialectics is a video by visual artist Zbyněk Baladrán with music, sound, and translation by Ian Mikyska, commissioned by Tabakalera, Donostia/San Sebastian.

Our other works with Zbyněk are: The Signature of Certain Things, One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, Catastrophe, Powerless Source of All Power, and To be framed.

Click on MORE below for the video.

Strings, Water, Leaves, Air is a solo album by Ian Mikyska inspired by various kinds of Chinese and Taiwanese teas. Each tea served as the inspiration for one track; each track was made by multi-tracking several layers (between two and five) on various string and wind instruments.

The album was released by Prague-based label Ma Records as part of their MiniMa edition.

Vzlety a dozvuky (Leaps and Landings) is a piece commissioned by Irvin Venyš and the Epoque Quartet and recorded for their second album together, Czechs Cross Over. The piece was recorded at HAMU Studios in Prague, where the video shown below was also made.

Click on MORE below to listen.

Básně/studie (Poems/Studies) is a piece for video and sound created by Ian Mikyska and Prokop Jelínek. It was created for the Pohyb – zvuk – meziprostor online festival organised by Bludný kámen, who commissioned the piece. 

The piece extends the duo's innovative use of collage techniques for both visual and sonic material as begun in their earlier Armenian-Georgian piece Seeing not something, but rather with something, according to something. All footage was shot in Prague, Czech Republic.

Click on MORE below to watch.

ZE TMY DO TMY REAL TIME FULL TIME TOTÁL MORÁL UNIVERZÁL SYMPHONY was a streamed performance by the multimedia improvisation group Stratocluster commissioned by and performed at the Alfred ve dvoře theatre. 

The performance features Tomáš Mika, Jan Faix, Jan Kulka, Mikuláš Mrva, Milan Jakeš, Luan Gonçalves, and Jakub Vaverka and was co-created by the entire group.

Click on MORE below for the video.

Coincidences – six pieces for Jiří Matějů is an acoustic companion to an exhibition by painter Jiří Matějů at the Kvalitář Gallery in Prague. 

The music was performed by Ian Mikyska (viola da gamba, recorders), Michal Wróblewski (bass clarinet, alto saxophone), and Milan Kárník Jakeš (violin) and recorded at the Kvalitář Gallery.

Visit this link to listen.

Staging the Plants is a performative garden design project by Tereza Kerle and Zóna. Here, you can listen to the sound component of June's performance at the Lungs of Žižkov Festival, organised by PONEC Theatre.

Listen at this link.

Nehybnost (Malostranská ticha) or Motionless (Malá Strana Silences) is a piece commissioned by the Berg Orchestra for the close of their 2019 season.

Click MORE below for the video.

This piece (for large ensemble and fixed electronics) was commissioned by the Berg Orchestra and premiered by the same ensemble conducted by Peter Vrábel at the Convent of St Agnes in Prague, December 10th 2019.

Programme note: "Passing from movement to stillness. Field recording silence; digital silence; electromagnetic, concert, conducted, and motionless silences. Walking and remaining. The difference between making a pause and stopping.

Two field recordings made while walking form the basis of this piece. They both start on Malostranské náměstí. One goes down towards Kampa Island, ending at a ventilation shaft by the museum, the other heads up towards the foot of Petřín Hill behind the German embassy. These recordings shape the course of the entire piece: both through their gradual passage from noisiness to quietude but also through the decelerating rhythm of walking, which also determines the tempo the musicians play at.

The electronic accompaniment also uses foley recordings of other objects and electromagnetic recordings of sounds normally inaudible to humans, mediated through electromagnetic receivers (in this case, the Elektrosluch Mini City, made by LOM)."  

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back is a video by visual artist Zbyněk Baladrán with sound and translation by Ian Mikyska, created for the exhibition Icons and Mythologies: The Desire of Changes at GAMU, Prague.

Our previous works with Zbyněk are The Signature of Certain Things, In Praise of Dialectics, Catastrophe, Powerless Source of All Power, and To be framed.

Click on MORE below for the video.

Proslov k národu (Speech to the Nation) is a theatre performance based on texts by Ascanio Celestini directed by Petra Tejnorová. 

More info here.

Namaran is a stage adaptation of a short dramatic text by Canadian playwright Laura Tirandaz commissioned by Mange ta grenouille (Eat That Frog), a festival of French-language theatre in Prague.

This is a sample of the sound component of the piece, which also includes movement, props, and materials.

Director and music: Ian Mikyska
Dramaturgy: Jakub Vaverka
Scenography: Ondřej Menoušek
Actress: Edita Valášková

Sled několika zvuků a tich (A Succession of Several Sounds and Silences)

This piece is part of a series of compositions commissioned by the Berg Orchestra to accompany the monthly siren test that rings out across the Czech Republic.

It is performed here by Tomáš Mika (electric guitar), Renata Raková and Anna Sysová (clarinets), and Šimon Veselý (percussion).

You can listen to an interview on Czech Radio with myself and Berg Orchestra manager Eva Kesslová here.

The piece made it to the finals of the Grand Prix Nova radio art competition in Romania.

Ředění soust (Diluting Mouthfuls) was a collective group exhibition at the GAMPA Gallery in Pardubice by Lenka Kerdová, Eliška Perglerová, David Helán, Ladislav Železný, and Ian Mikyska, curated by Lenka Dolanová. 

The exhibition took the form of a guided immersive and interactive walk: synchronised light and sound guided visitors along several stations.

Light design: Šimon Janíček
Programming: Jaromír Pražák 

Catastrophe is a video by visual artist Zbyněk Baladrán with music, sound, and translation by Ian Mikyska, commissioned by Tabakalera, Donostia/San Sebastian.

Our other works with Zbyněk are: The Signature of Certain Things, In Praise of Dialectics, One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, Powerless Source of All Power, and To be framed.

Press Paradox is a theatre performance by the group 8lidí. I prepared the music for the show, which was created collaboratively – eight actors who are at once directors, dramaturgs, and scenographers, plus me.

The focus is on Russian opposition journalist Arkady Babchenko, who – in cooperation with the Ukrainian secret service – faked his own death in May 2018 in order to uncover a real plot to kill him.

The show was originally produced in Divadlo Disk, later migrating to Palác Akropolis where you can still go see it.

You can see the trailer below, or click here to listen to a sample of the music.

Forgetting Ravel (2018) for oboe, cello, and harp.

Forgetting Ravel was commissioned by the MusicOlomouc festival 2018 and dedicated to the Isang Yun Trio (Vilém Veverka – oboe, Petr Nouzovský – cello, Kateřina Englichová – harp), who performed the world premiere in the Atrium of the Art Centre of Palacký University, Olomouc, on the 9th of October 2018.

Programme note: "Forgetting is generally framed as a negative element in our lives. But in order to focus on the present moment, we must forget all the worries and responsibilities waiting for us around the corner. A piece of music performed in a concert is, in a way, the epitome of such “bracketing”, of setting experience apart. In this piece, the source materials (quotations from Maurice Ravel’s piano trio and sonata for violin and cello) are used as vehicles for various methods of approaching silence and stillness. Forgetting Ravel and finding sound, realising the moment, getting to quietude. Finding the spot at which what we hear stops being “Ravel”; stops being anything, and simply becomes sound, duration, time, and silence. The piece is dedicated to the Isang Yun Trio."

Élévation is a short theatre performance inspired by the myth of Apollo and Daphne, premiered on the 4th of July 2018 at the FITUC international theatre festival in Casablanca, Morocco. 

Featured here is my accompanying music, used for the Intro and Outro of the piece.

Director: Anna Luňáková
Actors: Ondřej Macl, Martin Doucha, Anna Luňáková
Live painting: Vladimír Kiseljov
Music: Ian Mikyska

Ticho po pěšině is a devised theatre piece premiered at the Činoherní studio in Ústí nad Labem on

You can see the trailer below or listen to some excerpts from the incidental music (scored for a hunting band of two horns, trumpet, and trombone) here. 

Director: Anna Klimešová
Dramaturg: Boris Jedinák
Dramaturgical supervision: Dagmar Haladová
Scenography: Mikoláš Zika
Costumes: Klára Fleková
Music: Ian Mikyska

Actors: Adam Ernest, Lukáš Černoch, Jaroslav Achab Haidler, Dan Dittrich, Tereza Volánková, Anna Kratochvílová, Anna Fišerová, Jan Plouhar

Band: Jitka Jelínková, Richard Nowak, Vladimír Vlček, Ondřej Vlček, Pavel Staněk, Andrej Trepalin

Video recording of an improvised concert which took place on the 3rd of May 2018 at the Mirror Hall, Klementinum, Prague as part of the Zlomvaz festival.

Petr Vrba – trumpet, electronics
Ian Mikyska – banjo, guitar

Stratocluster's Eternagy – more than three years in the making – is a bizarre and fast-paced compendium of improvisations, texts, field recordings, friends, and fun.

Papír a čas (Paper and Time) was an interactive sound and object installation shown at IGLOO, the sound gallery of the Vysočina Regional Gallery in Jihlava from the 19th of April to the 27th of May 2018.

The two words of the title form the thematic core of the installation, in which the visitors are invited to explore their experiences of time time through listening and writing. Several of the objects come with instructions on a particular gesture which connects movement, the breath, and a written trace on paper.

Below is a video from the gallery with a rather unfortunately chosen soundtrack, followed by a short interview about the exhibition (in Czech).

for piano and video

music and video by Ian Mikyska
piano part performed by Clare Simmonds – www.claresimmonds.co.uk
recorded by Roy Cheung at the University of Surrey

Powerless Source of all Power / Peer to Peer Protocol / 1st episode
Writen and directed by Zbyněk Baladrán
Music and sound design by Ian Mikyska

Full HD, 8:00, 2018

Improvisation with two banjos and two ebows and Veronika playing her home-made instruments at the Wakushoppu concert series in Punctum, Prague, 13. 1. 2018.

V červnu 2017 podnikl Ian Mikyska cestu do Arménie a Gruzie. Během ní spolu s Prokopem Jelínkem sbírali obrazový i zvukový materiál pro video-instalaci do Arménského centra současného a experimentálního umění v Jerevanu, Seeing not something, but rather with something, according to something (3. 10. – 14. 10. 2017). Materiál je využitý také v této čistě zvukové kompozici pro Český rozhlas: Slyšet ne něco, ale spíše podle něčeho, s něčím.

Jedná se o něco jako experimentální cestopis, který posluchače mluveným slovem provádí nejen po reálných a specifikovaných místech, ale i po jednotlivých složkách zvukové a hudební struktury. Vedle terénních nahrávek je hlavním zdrojem zvuku pětistrunné a šestistrunné banjo. Pozornost posluchače je vedena od melodie jako hlavního hudebního, tedy myšlenkového, konceptuálního prvku, přes zvukovou informaci o daném prostředí k samotné materialitě zvuku: často chaotické detaily, vedené vlastnostmi a danostmi materiálu a situací – jak v terénních nahrávkách, tak v banju: struny, blána, smyčec, elektromagnetické vibrace a různé objekty.

Název pochází z eseje Oko a mysl francouzského filozofa Maurice Merleau-Ponty – citát původně hovoří o zraku. Merleau-Ponty se snažil pojednat zrak jako aktivitu, která je v dialogu s jevy, se kterými se setkává. Podobně je zde přistupováno ke slyšení – poslech jako ladění sebe k něčemu. Zvuk nás vede, přemisťuje nás, a my můžeme tento pohyb plně prožít, a také reflektovat to, jakými prostředky je tento pohyb uskutečňován: pomocí melodie, harmonie, rytmu, či terénními nahrávkami, tedy tvorbou virtuálního prostoru, nebo soustředěním na samotný zvuk, tedy jednotné a stálé pozornosti.

Posloucháme jiným způsobem hudbu a jiným krajinu: bližší poslech, který necháme „vést“, však opozice mezi těmito dvěma póly stírá; hudba se stává krajinou, krajina se stává hudbou. Soustředění na doznívající tón se rozlévá do prostoru. Pomalost, ticho a klid – klid aut, deště, louky, dlouhých tónů – dává možnost na všechno naše poslouchání nazírat z místa většího klidu a soustředění.

Projekt podpořilo Velvyslanectví České republiky v Jerevanu a Arménské centrum pro současné a experimentální umění.

http://prehravac.rozhlas.cz/audio/3961426

All Ending was written for Ensemble Konvergence, and premiered by the ensemble conducted by Petr Louženský on the 12th of December 2017 at St Lawrence's Church in Prague.

rok: 2017
autor: Jan Pfeiffer
technika: kreslená - gumovaná animace
stopáž: 3.22min
odborný poradce: Míša Janečková
zvuk: Ian Mikyska
Animace vznikla pro výstavu: Sídliště panelové bydliště v UPM

Lyrical Situation is a short video commissioned by the LiKE – Košice Literary Festival in Košice, Slovakia.

Seeing not something, but rather with something, according to something was a video installation I created with video-maker Prokop Jelínek for an exhibition at the Armenian Centre for Contemporary and Experimental Art in Yerevan. We used footage shot in Armenia (and a little in Georgia) with a camera motion control device created especially by Prokop which allowed us to repeat the same shot (movement) in different locations. We then used various methods of combining and overlaying these images, many of them inspired by the work (with static rather than moving images) of the Czech artist Jiří Kolář.

The piece was first shown at the Armenian Center for Contemporary and Experimental Art, Yerevan, Armenia (October 2017) and then at the Atrium na Žižkově Gallery in Prague, Czech Republic (May through June 2018).

a short field recording piece for Marie and Mikuláš Mrva.

for 9 conductors, 12 players and fixed media

performed at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, May 2017

Conductors:
James Weeks, Eden Londsdale, Richard Melkonian, David Knight, Philip Golub, Alex Hall, Samuel Wilson, Jacob Dofrman, Colm Molloy

Players:
Anna Roder, Monika Chmielewska – violins
Henrietta Hill – viola
Anais Laugenie – cello
Martin Ludenbach – double bass
Marcus Dawe – alto flute
Jonathan Willett – clarinet
Anna Clarke – bassoon
Frank Walter – horn v
Scott Kepmster – trumpet
Farkhad Bulatov – trombone
Matt Frost – bass drums

HD video and sound.

For best results, please listen with headphones.

Premiered by Justine Eckhaut at the Joseph-Joachim-Saal, UdK, Berlin, Germany.

“linear harmonic progression” is a term taken from Schenkerian analysis. Here, the linearity refers to the extremely straightforward nature of the determination of the pianists actions. However, the sonic interest arises from the impossibility of carrying out these instructions flawlessly; from the imperfection of the pianists physicality in contrast to the schematic nature of the instrument.

The score is available here.

Lieux publics – Centre national de création – Marseille – France

The „Support Points III.“ performance considers the topic of a long term maintenance of ideas, visions and their translation into a visual language of shapes (forms) and signs, it also asks how to know when certain philosophic direction is still vital, up-to-date and beneficial, and when it is just a repetitious effort to keep it alive. The main them of all action will be the metaphor of door: do we need go in or stay outside? Action is set for to performers and one door.

Performers: Evžénie Nízka and Jan Pfeiffer
Music: Ian Mikyska
Text: Jan Pfeiffer
Choreography: Jan Pfeiffer

Improvising with British electronics player Bobby Barry in Punctum, Prague, 9th of November 2016.

We later did a few more gigs with Bobby in the UK in 2017.

Corrugations is a piece for a quartet of sackbuts; a precursor to the modern trombone used in the renaissance and early baroque periods. It first came about after I heard Ian, Peter, Adam and James play a mass by Lassus on four sackbuts and a cornett, at a service in Girton College, Cambridge, in February 2016. We recorded the piece in June, and then I made the video together with Prokop Jelínek in August/September.

Music and concept: Ian Mikyska Video: Prokop Jelínek
performed by Ian Sankey and James Harold – tenor sackbuts, Peter Thornton and Adam Crighton – bass sackbuts
video performed by Luan Checchia Gonsalves, Prokop Jelínek – overhead projector

Special thanks to: the Punctum – Krásova collective, Slavomír Hořínka, Jan Kulka, Bára Nesnídalová and Tomáš Mika

Spaces, Drones and Melodies for accordion and tape was written for the 2016 Palendriai International Composer’s Course, where it was premiered and recorded by Tadas Motečius. The tape track contains field recordings made in Armenia, the United Kingdom, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

Gestures — Stases for clarinet and accordion was written as part of the Palendriai International Composer’s Course, Lithuania. It takes as its foundation a basic musical gesture: a sound rising in volume, reaching a peak, and then decaying again. However, this gesture is stretched in time to an almost static point.

The piece is here played by Simonas Tamulis (clarinet) and Tadas Motiečius (accordion).

https://soundcloud.com/accoakademija/ian-mikyska-gestures-stases

full HD, 8:28, 2016
Written and Directed by Zbyněk Baladrán
Camera by Nikola Brabcová, Jan Vidlička
Edited and postproduction by Jan Vidlička
Music and sound mix by Ian Mikyska, Jaroslav Noga
Record: Gijs Verhoofstad
Voiceover: Maartje Kunen

Actors:
Jarra Daelmans
Mus Daelmans
Das Hofman
Dit Hofman
Zij Hofman

Invited by ruangrupa, filmed in location of Buitenplaats Koningsweg, Arnhem, like part of collaboration between Code Rood and tranzitdisplay.

Commissioned by Sonsbeek 2016, Arnhem.

special thanks to Sibylle Eimermacher, Jeroen Glas and Marcel Daelmans

Arnhem/Prague 2016

300′ writing (300’ psaní) is a multimedia installation which includes objects, video and sound. Created by Ian Mikyska, Prokop Jelínek and Jaroslav Noga, it was shown at Galerie Pavilon (gallery of the Academy of Visual Arts, Prague) from the 21st of July to the 31st of August 2016.

At its core, we find the 300 minutes of writing mentioned in the title: 100 minutes were spent writing text on each one of the three objects, based on a specific set of instructions. Audio and video were captured during this process, which served as the material for the projections and sound track.

Glass and tracing paper were the main materials for the objects, lending the entire space a sense of transparency, in which the physicality and materiality of the writing could stand out. The experience of time – time writing, time reading, time spent in the space – was a central concern of the work: time was distorted in the video through changes in speed, and in the sound through layering, repetition and patterning to create an isolated space, torn out of the usual time frame.

[[[[[[k tomuhle bych chtěl jen přiložit fotky; jde to? viz zde: https://ianmikyska.com/music/audiovisual/300-writing/

#TODO

A live improvisation by Ian Mikyska (guitar) and Ábel Fazekas (clarinet and bass clarinet), who hails from Budapest but is now based in The Hague.

Recorded at the Kasárne/Kulturpark in Košice, Slovakia.

Sound and video recording by Luc de la Salle as part of the Euro-PA project.

Conferences (8 pages for two voices and ensemble) came to be thanks to composer Thomas Fournil, who ran a medieval French music ensemble and commissioned several new pieces. The score presents materials of various degrees of specificity, with the main organising principle being players cueing and reacting to each other.

“Recrudescence is the revival of material or behavior that had previously been stabilized, settled, or diminished.”

“recrudescence – a new outbreak after a period of abatement or inactivity”

“recrudescence – breaking out afresh or into renewed activity; revival or reappearance in active existence”

— literally “becoming raw again”

Based on Petrarch’s 13th poem from Il Canzoniere, Recrudescences (for counter tenor, ensemble and video) was written for the GSMD New Music Ensemble, led by James Weeks, and premiered at the Guildhall School Music Hall, 29th of June 2016.

Text by Louis Armand
Music by Ian Mikyska

performed by Lucie Páchová (voice) and Ian Mikyska (guitar) at Galerie PLATO, Ostrava, Czech Republic on the 21st of May 2015.

Cessations is a piece for piccolo and bass flute (which also asks both players to speak, sing, and whistle) and live electronics.

You can listen to a recording here – premiere live recording by Antonia Berg (bass flute) and Simon Williams (piccolo).

Currents/Points was written between February and May of 2016, for an instrumentation of large ensemble (fl/picc, ob, bcl, bn, hn, tp, tb, 2 vlns, vla, vc, cb, perc, pno) and video. Inspired by the distribution of water droplets from the Lakeside Terrace at the Barbican Centre, London (shown below), footage of these droplets also forms the bulk of the video material. This footage then served as the basis for the musical material as well: I slowed the video down by 50% and then asked a pianist to try and play along with it as precisely as possible (drops in the left side of the shot are lower down on the keyboard; those on the right are higher up) into a MIDI keyboard connected to notation software. I then ordered the bits of material by density and used them as a basis for the piece. If the original instigation was the chaotic system at work in the distribution of the droplets, then it is transcribed (transmedialised) four times: by virtue of being filmed, then transcribed by the pianist, then orchestrated by me, then played (from fairly difficult parts) by the musicians. The aesthetic merit of these systems (I’m reluctant to call them ‘natural’) in contrast with artificiality and obviously human design is the locus of this piece.

The piece was recorded at the Milton Court Concert Hall by musicians from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama conducted by James Weeks.

This piece, for pianist, prepared piano and tape, was written for pianist Clare Simmonds and premiered at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, in May 2016.

this piece is to be played three times; softly was written for the VENI academy in 2016, received its premiere at the radio_head awards 2015 at the Slovak Radio, Bratislava, Slovakia, conducted by Marco Vlasák, with soloists David Danel (violin) and Ábel Fazekas (bass clarinet). The piece was then played again at a concert in Kasárne/Kulturpark, Košice, Slovakia.

Video and audio recording by Luc de la Selle as part of the Euro-PA project.

road patterns in decay is an electronic composition recorded in March 2016, released on the Signals from Arkaim label, where you can listen and download for free.

It was made using only the on-board entertainment system of a Student Agency “Fun & Relax” bus going from London to Prague, specifically the radio. The piece consists of four movements, each of which is based on a different ‘rule’ for when to tune the radio up by .5 MHz (the default setting). Hidden in the fascinatingly complex noise that comes out are certain minor details about the given stage of the journey; just enough to form a hazy idea of the movement of the bus, of other cars, of the landscape.

http://signalsfromarkaim.blogspot.cz/2016/06/sfa063-ian-mikyska-road-patterns-in.html

Click HERE for video.

A piece for wind quintet (bass flute, oboe, bass clarinet, bassoon, horn).

Recorded in March 2016 at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London.

Simon Williams – bass flute
Isha Crichlow – bass clarinet
Kaija Lappi – oboe
Juliet Webb – bassoon
Ruth Dingle – horn

Montage is a piece by artist Jan Pfeiffer in which a performer (Hana Polanská Turečková) constructs an object in a gallery, to music. This object is then exhibited there, together with a video of the construction process.

This piece, written as a text score for three drumkits, three electric basses, three analogue projectors, guitar and saxophone, was premiered at a concert at Punctum, Prague, on the 31st of August of 2015.

The piece was performed by the ensemble Stratocluster, with special guests Lukas Ligeti and James Ilgenfritz on drumkit and bass respectively. The analogue projectors were designed and built by Jan Kulka.

Line-up:

Marcel Bárta – saxophone
Tomáš Mika – guitar
Ian Mikyska – projections
James Ilgenfritz – bass guitar
Ondřej Komárek – bass guitar
Mikuláš Mrva – bass guitar<> Lukas Ligeti – drumkit
Jan Kulka – drumkit
Jaroslav Noga – drumkit

The concert also featured several improvisations featuring our two guests and members of Stratocluster, which can be found here:

https://hra94.bandcamp.com/album/stratocluster-featuring-lukas-ligeti-and-james-ilgenfritz

A piece for any two plucked string instruments and fire (outdoors). A new set of chords are chosen for each realisation and placed inside a pre-composed grid.

Played here in a version for guitar and banjo by myself and Tomáš Mika.

Premiered at the Ostrava Days Festival on the 25th of August 2015 by Annette Schönmüller (mezzo-soprano), Keiko Shichijo (piano) and Lucie Vítková (projection operator). It is based on J.W. von Goethe’s Wandrers Nachtlied (Ein Gleiches), and uses ‘text’ by Ferenc Liszt and Franc Schubert.

The piece was also performed by Lucie Vítková (mezzo-soprano), Joseph Houston (piano) and Rebecca Lane (projection operator) in Berlin on the 7th of December 2015.

This piece, based on the bluegrass classic ‘Bury Me Beneath the Willow’. It is performed here by Lucie Vítková, James P.A. Falzone, and Ian Mikyska at the Ostrava Days Festival 2015.

This piece, a video poem for guitar and wheat field was written for the September issue of The Goose: Journal for Arts, Environment and Culture in Canada. It was performed by Tomáš Mika on guitar, Kryštof Vosátka carrying the score, and the composer recording, and is dedicated to Václav Gabriel Piňos and Kryštof Vosátka.

on properties of observation, a poem published in Abolishing Prague, an anthology of Prague-based writing edited by Louis Armand and published by Litteraria Pragensia (Charles University Press) in 2015. E-book available for download.

This piece was part of a project based on transcriptions of Guillaume de Machaut, led by James Weeks. It is based on Machaut’s ballade Riches d’Amour.

Performed at Milton Court Concert Hall by the Guildhall New Music Ensemble conducted by James Weeks.

Persona Forte is a theatre play/installation by Czech artists Jan Pfeiffer and Markéta Magidová. It took place in Prádelna Bohnice in, June – August 2015.

The show, for which I wrote and performed live music and sounds, was recorded and then placed as part of the installation, which includes the movable set, designed by Jan, and further video.

Further info and photos

This is a series of text score pieces called malé věci v krajině (small things in the landscape), after Michal Šiška’s eponymous book.

The first piece, Accordi, is as yet unperformed.

The second is documented here, performed by members of Stratocluster the hra94 inaugural concert at Atelier Varšavská in June 2014.

// for the few Czech words that are spoken, you can turn on the English captions.

A piece for video and sound; presented online. Recorded on an MQ825USB 37 Key Electric Piano.

Stratocluster is a sextet from Prague, CZ, focusing on musical and multimedia free improvisation. Live recording from Vs. interpretation festival organised by Agosto Foundation Ian Mikyska, Tomas Mika, Marcel Barta, Jan Faix, Mikulas Mrva, Jan Kulka http://bandzone.cz/stratocluster

This piece, for speaking violist and speaking cellist, was written between the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014 in Prague and London, and premiered by Miguel Angel Rodriguez Olivera and Andrew Power at Power Lunches in Hackney, London, on the 1st of April 2014. The same musicians are on this recording, engineered by Mark Rainbow at the studios of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.

This piece was written in June 2013 and was premièred at the Ostrava Philharmonic Hall during the Ostrava Days Festival of New and Experimental Music, during the Into the Night program on the 27th of August 2013.

The Analyses is a stage play that I co-wrote with Václav Gabriel Piňos in January 2013, for which I also wrote the music. It was produced in April of the same year, in Divadlo Inspirace in Prague’s Lesser Town by Blood Love & Rhetoric Theatre.

Composed in 2012, based on stories from Dubliners by James Joyce and poems by Seamus Heaney.

For singer, two male narrators, string quartet, clarinet, acoustic guitar, double bass, drum set.

The idea behind this piece was to base each movement on a particular story from Dubliners (The Sisters, Araby, A Painful Case and Eveline), with the music being subjected to the narrative as much as possible. The narrators generally take on more authoritative, antagonistic roles, while the singer introduces a softer, lyrical aspect to the stories, defending against the narrators’ relentless attacks with various types of song, often parodying or mocking.

Script

Programme notes (also includes notes to the Quintet for Strings and Guitar and Metamorphoses for Two Clarinets)

Based on Francis Poulenc’s, Sonata for Two Clarinets, composed in 1908, and the opening of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, written three years earlier, explores the relationship between two identical instruments timbres, as well as the cadence and tonality of speech.

Played by Jiří Mráz and Aleš Hustoles, recorded live at Studio Alta on the 14th of September 2012.

In 2012, I served as music director, composer and conductor for Akanda’s adaptation of Peter Weiss’ fantastic Marat/Sade, produced by Canadian artist Althea Thauberger.

There were five performances of the play, plus one for the inmates of the asylum, followed by a discussion. Then followed a week of filming, which was turned into a film by Thauberger which was shown in Liverpool, Toronto and Nottingham amongst others. Unfortunately, the film is not in the public domain, but you can watch excerpts with my music here: