Petr Kotik
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Petr Kotik (surname originally Kotík) (born January 27, 1942, in Prague, Czech Republic) is a composer, conductor and flutist based in New York City. In Prague, he founded and directed Musica Viva Pragensis (1961–64) and the QUAX Ensemble (1966–69). He came to the United States in 1969 at the invitation of Lukas Foss and Lejaren Hiller to join the Center for Creative and Performing Arts at the University at Buffalo.
Early life
[edit]Although Kotik entered a conservatory at the age of 14, he only began composing in his late teens. As a composer, Kotik is self-taught.
He was educated in Europe (Prague Conservatory, graduated 1961; Vienna Music Academy, graduated 1966; and AMU Prague, graduated 1969). From 1960 to 1963, Kotik studied composition with composer Jan Rychlík in Prague, and from 1963 to 1966 at the Music Academy in Vienna with Karl Schieske, Hans Jelinek, and Friedrich Cerha.
Career
[edit]Kotik founded the S.E.M. Ensemble in 1970, in which he was also the Artistic Director,[1][2] based in New York City. Kotik has given performances as conductor and performer, aka the Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble. Since 1983, Kotik has been living in New York City. Kotik has received numerous commissions and composition grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. Kotik received a 1996 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. Kotik also composed the six-hour opera Many Many Women (1976–78) based on a text by Gertrude Stein.
In 1992, Kotik conducted Atlas Eclipticalis by John Cage with the 86-piece Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble in Tribute to John Cage at Carnegie Hall. Since then, Kotik has expanded the S.E.M. Ensemble into The Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble. In 1999, after conducting Gruppen by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Kotik initiated a project of compositions for 3 orchestras and commissioned the creation of new 3-orchestra works by Alvin Lucier, Christian Wolff, Martin Smolka, Phill Niblock and Olga Neuwirth. In 2001, Kotik founded the biennial Ostrava Days, an Institute and Festival of New Music in Ostrava, Czech Republic.
Kotik's best-known compositions are Music for 3 (1964) for piano and 2 strings; Spontano (1964) for piano and ensemble (composed for Frederic Rzewski); Kontrabandt (1967), a live electronic work commissioned by the WDR Electronic Music Studio; Many Many Women (1975–78) on a text by Gertrude Stein; and Letters to Olga (1988–91) on a text by Václav Havel. His orchestra pieces include: Quiescent Form (1994–96); the one-hour-long Music in Two Movements (1998–2002); Variations for 3 Orchestras (2002–2005); and Spheres and Attraction (2005–2006) for 2 voices, string quartet and percussion on a text by R. Buckminster Fuller.
Kotik's massive and too modestly named Fragment, which he conducted with his S.E.M. Ensemble, and which finally gives me sufficient pretext to voice the overdue sentiment that he is one of the best composers working today. [...] He produced some of the most durable, though still little-known musical monuments of the post-Cage 70s, and his output has been amazingly consistent in quality. —New York music critic and composer Kyle Gann, The Village Voice, 1998.[3]
Personal life
[edit]His father was the painter Jan Kotík. He is married to the curator and art historian Charlotta Kotik, great-granddaughter of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, and has a son, Tomas (Tom), who is a New York-based sculptor. His other son, Jan Jakub Kotik, was born in 1972 and died of cancer in 2007.
References
[edit]- ^ Ross, Alex (1 November 1994). "Czechs Celebrate Traditions Of the Other Classical Crucible". New York Times. Retrieved 13 June 2010.
- ^ Lockwood, Alan (12 October 2009). "Sounds like now". Muso Magazine. Ostrava Center for New Music. Archived from the original on 14 September 2012. Retrieved 13 June 2010.
- ^ Glann, Kyle (June 9, 1998). "S.E.M. Ensemble" (PDF).
External links
[edit]| International | |
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- 1942 births
- 20th-century classical composers
- 21st-century classical composers
- Contemporary classical music performers
- Czech classical composers
- Czech male classical composers
- Living people
- Prague Conservatory alumni
- University at Buffalo alumni
- University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna alumni
- Composers from Prague
- 20th-century Czech male musicians
- 21st-century Czech male musicians