VENI 30
VENI ensemble will perform at Pohoda on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the ensemble on stage. “Veni” means coming. Under the leadership of Daniel Matej, twenty top artists will play concert called “Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet - Believe It, or Not!” The composer and publicist Jaroslav Šťastný wrote about the company for contemporary music: “We cannot find an ensemble with a richer history in terms of cooperation with world composers or performers in the whole of Slovakia and Bohemia.”
14. May 2018
VENI ensemble was founded in the House of Slovak Composers in Dolná Krupá during the weekend at the end of October 1987. Juraj Kušnierik wrote in the text on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the creation of the ensemble: “At that time, people in the concert halls could hear well-played Brahms, Tchaikovsky or Beethoven, but only a narrow circle of experts knew about the production of Erik Satie, John Cage, Terry Riley or Arvo Pärt. A group of students of Academy of Performing Arts around Juraj Beneš and Milan Adamčiak thought this was not enough, which resulted in the formation of the ensemble. “We would go to the Warsaw Autumn Festival and there we realized the power of contemporary music played live. It was much more intense than recordings. We wanted to listen to music that nobody was playing, so we started playing it ourselves,” recalls Daniel Matej, the then student, today's associate professor for composing and artistic director of VENI ensemble. The particularity of VENI was also the informality, quite unprecedented in classical music. It was usual for the members of the ensemble to perform not wearing suits but rather casual clothes instead. “We want to be an ensemble like rock bands are. We play our own songs and the music we love,” is how Daniel Matej described the curiosity of VENI ensemble.
The concert entitled “Jesus´ Blood Never Failed Me Yet - Believe it, or not!” at Pohoda 2018 is the fifth concert of the Slovak tour VENI 30, which takes place on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the existence of the ensemble on the domestic and foreign scene. It will include a number of “hits” organised in a set to create a suite in which each part of it (though originating from different authors) is closely related to what preceded it, as well as to what follows it...
PROGRAMME
1. Daniel Matej (1963) Believe it, or not! (1995)
Version for a voice and chamber ensemble
2. Gavin Bryars (1943) Jesus´ Blood Never Failed Me Yet (1971)
for audio recording and instrument ensemble
3. Daniel Matej (1963) CODA (to JBNFMY) (2013)
for soundtrack and the leaving ensemble
4. Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007) Aus den sieben Tagen, selection (1968)
for any number of players
PERFORMING ARTISTS
- VENI ensemble
- Veronika Vitázková – flute (1-4)
- Ivica Gábrišová-Encingerová – flute, picola (1-4)
- Martina Lišková-Kamenská – clarinet (1-4)
- Ronald Šebesta – clarinet (1-4)
- Branislav Dugovič – bass clarinet (1-4)
- Nikolaj Nikitin – tenor saxophone (2-4)
- Robert Kolář – trumpet (2-4)
- Ivan Šiller – piano (1-4)
- Tibor Feledi – synthesiser (2-4)
- Fero Király – ARP Odyssey (2-4),
- Milan Osadský – accordion (1-4)
- Juraj Beráts – electric guitar (2-4)
- Michal Matejka – electric guitar (2-4)
- Dalibor Kocián – vibraphone (2-4)
- Lenka Novosedlíková – marimba (2-4)
- Andrej Gál – violoncello (1-4)
- Jonatán Pastirčák – sound recording operation (2-3), violoncello (4)
- Adam Matej – sound recording operation (2-3)
- Juraj Beráts – production
- Daniel Matej, artistic director – vocal (1), conducting (2- 4), electronics, objects, voice (4)