promoters (T)

composer, b. 16th August 1969 in Łódź. He studied composition under Jerzy Bauer at the Academy of Music in Łódź (1989-95). In 1995 he completed a one-year course in music composition and computer music at the IRCAM in Paris. It was in Paris that he created his original multimedia project Voyage Amer (together with the French set designer Alain Galet). In 1995-2001 he received a scholarship from the Witold Lutosławski Foundation. The performance (in 1997) of Avalon’s Gates for flute and computer (written in the same year) was his debut at the “Warsaw Autumn” Festival. In 1998-2001 he continued his composition studies with Ulrich Süße at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Stuttgart. In 1999-2000 he attended a course on object modelling synthesis at the Centre for Art and Media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, where in 2000, together with the video artist Berthold Gantner, he presented a multimedia project for tape entitled L’Ange Noire – 4 Skizzen (2000).

Michał Talma-Sutt was twice awarded at the International Rostrum of Electroacoustic Music: in 1998 in Vienna he received the 1st prize in the category of composers under 30 and 2nd prize in the general category for What Nostradamus Has Kept Only for Himself for tape (1995); in 2000 in Madrid – the 1st prize in the general category for Light and Shade for tape (2000).

His music has frequently been performed in Poland, as well as at festivals and concerts in Germany, Austria, France, Great Britain, Spain, Denmark, Romania, South Africa and Latvia.

In 2007 Michał Talma-Sutt was the artistic director of the International Festival “Musica Electronica Nova” in Wrocław.

The composer has resided in Berlin since 2001.

Updated: March 2014 (iz) 

The Composer’s official website: www.michal-talma-sutt.de

works

Talma-Sutt’s music falls into two basic categories: pure electronics and compositions that combine computer-generated sounds with acoustic instruments. The composer describes his attitude to musical form as follows:

"I do not seek one ideal, universal form in my music, even if such a form were to be improved or developed with every new piece. On the contrary: in every case I try to find a completely new formal solution. In fact, for me the starting point is an idea for a new individual form. I later develop and polish that idea till the very last note has been written. The development of form is, in my view, a complex, multi-level process, involving not only the overall architecture of the piece – its macro-form – but also its micro-formal elements which must be combined into a logical whole and linked by a network of internal relations. Working on a new piece, I often skip chronology, simultaneously looking for solutions for two or more different sections. This kind of creative process in perfectly natural in my case, as it results from a preconceived plan, from the starting point I have already talked about, from my initial assumptions. Without losing sight of the whole, I can thus work out the details. […]"

In an interview Michał Talma-Sutt thus replied to my claim that electronic music is one of his passions:

"It is one of the fields I work in, and certainly a very significant one, since it also changed the traditional way of composing."

I then asked him to explain briefly (the way he would talk to a layman) what intrigues and fascinates him most in electroacoustic music, what inspires his imagination. Without a moment of hesitation, the composer answered:

"Magic and miracles. This is a medium one can really work magic with: find new colours and new, frequently incredible types of sound. This is what attracts me in it. I have always been fond of working with sounds that do not exist in nature or seem natural though they were created in a studio."

So it is a bit like discovering new lands?

"Most certainly, also in the context of visual arts. I like to create fantastic musical-and-graphic visions. I have always been interested in the changing technology and how the new possibilities can be applied in art. Multimedia compositions created by means of computers constitute an important part of my work., I believe one can express a lot in such music by means of synchronised vision, music and light, naturally – as long as it is done in agreement with the composer’s ideas. It is the composer’s vision that should determine the form of light projection or choreography in a ballet or a pantomimę."

Marek Zwyrzykowski
(from the CD booklet “Polish Music Today – Portraits of Contemporary Polish Composers –
Michał Talma-Sutt” - polmic 096 / PRCD 1748)

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