June's hindsight

First, I would like to mention my thesis which I am already intensely working on this year. As I wrote in my last post, the subject "recording and amplifying of the accordion" is such an uncharted area so far that my work goes quite smoothly and fast. I wrote a major part of the text already during this semester, and now I need to do the most important part - the practical one. This part includes mainly a lot of experimentation with the accordion and microphones in a studio. I started with such experiments already at the school professional recording studios at KMH during this spring. The local studios offer me a maximum comfort and ideal conditions, and I feel very lucky that I can take advantage of that. However, I am still at the beginning with this experimental part, so one of my main tasks for this summer is my thesis. I believe that at the end of my musical and acoustic research, I will get much closer to the ideal capturing and reproducing of the accordion sound. The results of this thesis will be enormously beneficial for my future work, and perhaps it will help other accordionists and musicians as well.

My spring semester was not just about writing the thesis, but it also brought me a number of purely musical experiences such as new music projects and concerts that I played. I have played several schoolconcerts where I played both solo and as a member of the accordion trio. I also had an opportunity to play an extracurricular solo recital in a church near Stockholm where I presented the top accordion pieces that are still something entirely new to common audiences. And of course, we also played concerts with our duo Rydén & Řehák. Actually, very interesting experiences await for our duo in the next academic year. As I mentioned before, the cellist Johannes Rydén and I have succeeded with our project "Musik jorden runt" and have a chance to present our new program in public on behalf of one of the most important cultural venues in Stockholm - Musikaliska. We have already received several offers to perform our program, and we will be playing our first bigger concert with this project at the end of this summer. The program is mainly arranged for children, but we believe that it will not be boring for adult audiences either. At the same time, I can see how well such independent projects can work with state institutions such as schools. There are almost no projects like this one in the Czech Republic, and therefore I admit that I have some ambition to implement a project of this kind in the near future in the Czech Republic.
http://www.musikaliska.se/lansmusiken-i-stockholm/utbud-20182019/musik-jorden-runt-6-12-ar.

Regarding my summer plans, I plan to make several new recordings and music videos during the summer holidays, choose a new repertoire, and think about new music projects that I could work on next year. Actually, I have created a small but very inspiring project called "Aerial" in Stockholm recently. It was a new collaboration with the Spanish singer Paula Calbet with whom we set up a rather popular but original music program that is very unusual in this combination - singing and accordion. In this project, I went through a whole range of activities in a very short period (1-2 months). From composing the program and choosing the pieces, through arranging the pieces for this group, to Milan Řehák – The Royal College of Music in Stockholm (KMH) arranging, organizing and promoting the concert that we performed this program at. The concert took place in one of the famous music clubs in the centre of Stockholm. We have also recorded and released some pieces from our program, so I had an opportunity to try out a complete recording process on my own - from recording ourselves, through mixing and mastering the tracks, to the release of the music and its distribution in online stores. I am very glad that I started to care about these "more technical things" a few years ago. In my opinion, it is essential to know and we should not rely solely on playing the instrument only. I think that all these things create a comprehensive package of skills that help musicians to realize our ideas on the field of art. I as an accordionist - someone who does not have a chance to get a full-time job in a classical orchestra unlike a number of traditional instruments, I try to think this way and try to realize my ideas on my own. The accordion is an instrument that still has a lot to develop and there are plenty of new and unveiled paths that I can go, and it is up to me what new projects I will create with this instrument in the future, whether in Sweden, in the Czech Republic or anywhere else in the world. The path is open! I wish you all a great summer!