Academy

Central themes in Ondřej Adámek’s work are:

– the urgent need for communication—even where it seems impossible or where it is thwarted by insurmountable obstacles,

– collective guilt,

– uncontrollable crowds and collective hysteria,

– the grotesque game that turns into a warning or militarized aggression,

– trauma, memory, and nostalgia as deliberately staged acoustic illusions,

– manipulation and the physical impact of sound,

– as well as the tension between human and machine—a duality that shapes his music both emotionally and conceptually.

Adámek often works with authentic material—postcards written by his grandfather and great-grandmother from concentration camps, or fragments of conversations between prisoners and their wives, as heard on the streets of Hamburg. He strips these texts of their semantic function and transforms them into rhythmic fragments, breath-based pulses, or glitch-like sound structures.

His works often emerge through processes of distortion: what starts as a poetic figure,  gradually condenses into an overload, a warning, or a collapse. Grotesque gestures turn into physical discomfort—as if a game had gotten out of control.

He expands the expressive range of traditional instruments and voices through extended playing techniques, microintervals, and breathing sounds. In doing so, he strives for a  maximum acoustic energy and a powerful physical impact. He also invents new instruments, such as the Airmachine—a breath-powered instrument made of hoses, valves, gloves, and horns—which produces sounds and a visual theater ranging from the comical to the menacing.

The voice plays a central role in Adámek’s music—not only as a vehicle for text, but as an instrument of breath, movement, and human intimacy. Spoken or half-sung phrases, exhalations, phonemes, and cries form multi-layered textures. With his ensemble N.E.S.E.V.E.N., Adámek creates works in which voice, gesture, and presence are fully composed—often straddling the line between concert and theater.

Adámek’s compositions are performed by leading orchestras and ensembles, including the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Musikfabrik, and Ensemble Modern. He has received numerous awards, including the Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale (2023), the Premio Abbiati del Disco (2022), the Tansman Grand Prix, the Prix Georges Enesco, and the Composition Prize of the City of Stuttgart. His works are published by Boosey & Hawkes.

As an educator, Adámek combines precise craftsmanship—orchestration, form, notation, acoustic structure—with openness, intuition, and a physical approach to music. In his voice- and body-based workshops, he fosters the connection between breath, body, and imagination. His goal is to empower young composers to hear internally what they are writing, to express it precisely, and to communicate it clearly to performers, conductors, and audiences. He has taught at the Conservatoire de Paris, the Berlin University of the Arts, the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya, and at numerous international academies and master classes. As part of the Generace competition, he founded the Symphonic Lab in collaboration with the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava—an annual course in orchestral writing that combines rehearsals with a professional orchestra, a public final concert, and a commission for a new orchestral composition.

 

ondrejadamek.com

 

 

Ondřej Adámek will be present at impuls between February 8th and 15th.