Matouš Hejl: Music for the December Siren
Premiere: 4th December 2019, Jan Neruda Grammar School
Adam Richter a Štěpánka Balcarová – trumpets, Štěpán Janoušek – trombone, Jiří Genrt – tuba
Matouš Hejl created an event for the staircase of his alma mater, the Jan Neruda Grammar School, in Prague’s Malá Strana district. In the first part, the tones of the regular siren test overlap with the opening bars of the overture to Bedřich Smetana’s opera Libuše. In the second part, the central motif of this famous extract is dissolved into the outside noise by slipping into the harmonics of the brass. Together, both parts form a kind of inverted fanfare.
Tvorba Matouše Hejla (*1989) makes work in the fields of classical music, experimental electronica, film, theatre, radio art, and multimedia. In 2018, his piece Crossings was a finalist in the Czech Philharmonic’s compositions competition. He is the recipient of the 2018 award A Little Lower Than C4. He was nominated for a Czech Lion Award for his music for the film Lost in Munich. He is a frequent collaborator of the Berg Orchestra, with whom he realised his immersive composition Prolínám, stmívám in 2019. He performs in a chamber context, playing piano, cimbalom, percussion, and bass guitar.
soundcloud.com/matoushejl
