Berlin-based composer-performer and currently Agosto artist-in-residence Burkhard Beins collaborates with the Prague Improvisation Orchestra (PIO) on a new composition based on his score Adapt/Oppose, a modular graphic sign system he has been using extensively for some 12 years. In place of a fixed composition Adapt/Oppose is a tool for working out pieces in a collective processes. Depending on the context – which may range from workshops to professional ensembles, as well as his own groups – the resulting music may sound very different, but the inherent structures and formal ideas of Adapt/Oppose nevertheless shape each of its manifestations.

The graphic sign system confronts the performers with clear indications how to generally relate to each other in given situations, but at the same time they are invited to become co-composers by making their own individual decisions about the exact choice of musical material, duration, dynamics and so on. Thus the performed pieces are as much their achievement as it is the composer’s.

PIO was founded in 2012 by George Cremaschi and Petr Vrba. The formation that will play at Atrium Žižkov includes:

George Cremaschi – contrabass
Barbora Čopaková – piano
Andrea La Rose – flute
Elia Moretti – vibraphone and percussion
Lucie Páchová – voice
Renata Raková – clarinet
Michal Zbořil – electronics
Petr Vrba – trumpet

The evening will begin with a percussion solo by Burkhard Beins.