Date/Time: 01 October 2025, 18:00
Place: Klangtheater, Future Art Lab, Anton von Webern Platz 1, 1030 Vienna
Beautification is an event comprised of concert of instrumental solo and chamber music composed by Jagoda Szmytka, accompanied by an exhibition of sketches and drawings created by the composer in parallel with her work on the scores. Four of the six programmed compositions were written especially for three artists — violinist Marta Piórkowska, cellist Leo Morello and guitarist Samuel Toro Pérez — and will be premiered by them at the Hashtag Lab in Warsaw (22 September 2025) and performed again at the Klangtheater of the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (1 October 2025). In addition to the new pieces, the programme includes two older pieces — one of which is composed for amplified string instrument and audio- and video projection — in a new, revised version.
Beautification is one of the first public presentations of the results of Jagoda Szmytka’s artistic research, which she conducted from 2021 to 2025 in the framework of the Doctor Artium programme under the supervision of Professor Johannes Kretz, Professor Gesine Schröder, Franz Schuber and Professor Tasos Zembylas at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. The work on the scores and sketches, as well as the artistic collaboration between the composer and Marta Piórkowska, Leo Morello and Samuel Toro Pérez, was realised with the support of the mdw, the Tokyo Foundation, the Polish Institute in Vienna, the Austrian Federal Ministry for Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport, the City of Vienna Cultural Department, the Austrian Cultural Forum Warsaw and the Capital City of Poland Warsaw. After the concert, Jagoda Szmytka will give a public lecture in which she will discuss the musical compositions performed in the concert, the sketches on display, and other parts of her artistic doctoral research project Almanac of Extended Composition.
CONCERT PROGRAMME
fantasia on beautification (2025) for electric guitar solo
f* for music (2012/2024-2025) for electric guitar and violoncello
canon (2025) for electric guitar and violoncello
figures and emotions (2025) for violin solo
variations on a theme by Forsythe (2025) for violoncello solo
körperwelten (2008/2025) for amplified bowed string instrument, audio and video projection
Jagoda Szmytka’s musical compositions are published by PWM Edition.
INTERPRETERS
Samuel Toro Pérez — electric guitar
Marta Piórkowska — violin
Leo Morello — violoncello
Philipp Kleinwort — sound direction, AV projection (concert in Klangtheater)
Wojciech Błażejczyk — sound direction, AV projection (concert in Klangtheater)
WORKS ON DISPLAY
The exposition features visual works which were created at the same time and in formal or other specific relation to instrumental compositions created during and as part of doctoral
artistic research studies. These are executed with mixed techniques — such as ink, graphite, pencil, polychromos pencils, oil pastels and gouache — drawings on paper which are related to programmed musical pieces, fantasia on beautification, canon, figures and emotions and variations on a theme by Forsythe. Moreover, the presentation includes selected visual sketches and score excerpts from the summer diary (2024-ongoing) — a double cycle of piano and drawing miniatures, score excerpts from states of matter for large orchestra and drawings which I created during compositional processes. The last group of drawings and score excerpts is entitled growth.
