Krzysztof Knittel

Born in Warsaw in 1947, he studied sound engineering and composition with Tadeusz Baird, Andrzej Dobrowolski, and W1odzimierz KotoYski at the Music Academy in Warsaw. Since 1973 he has collaborated with the Polish Radio Experimental Studio. He took part in the Summer Courses of New Music in Darmstadt (1974, 1976). In 1978 he worked for the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts in Buffalo. He is the co-founder of creative groups, including the kew Composers1 Group (1973­76), OCytula Tyfun da Bamba Orkiester1 (1981), the Independent Electroacoustic Music Studio (1982­84), OLight from Poland1 (1985­87), OFreight Train1 (since 1986), the Ch&K Studio (since 1989), the European Improvisation Orchestra (since 1996), the CH&K Group (since 1999). Apart from works for acoustic instruments, Knittel has also written computer and electro-acoustic music, created performances, built sound installations and played in improvised music ensembles. He has performed his music at numerous concerts and festivals of new music in most of the European countries, Asia, and North and South America, including concerts devoted exclusively to his music (Barcelona, Budapest, Kraków, Kromeryz, Moscow, Sao Paulo, Warsaw). He has given lectures on new music in Alicante, Barcelona, Boston, Budapest, Philadelphia, Munich, and Prague. As journalist and critic, he contributed to the OTygodnik Literacki1 periodical and freelanced for Polish Television (the weekly arts feature and the Classical Music Department). His honours include the Solidarity Prize for the String Quartet written in tribute to Father Jerzy Popie1uszko (1985). He also received the Award of the Foundation for Contemporary Performing Arts in New York (1998) and the Award of the Polish Composers1 Union (2003).
He served as Vice-chairman of the Polish Section of the iscm (1989­92). He was the director of the OWarsaw Autumn1 International Contemporary Music Festival (1995­98) and president of the Polish Composers' Union (1999­2003). In June 2003 he was elected a member of the Supervisory Council of Polish Television.
He has lectured at the Music Academy in ¸óde since 2001.

Selected works (since 1980): Norcet 1 and Norcet 2, music for tape (1980), Three Studies for piano (1980), 29 staves for chamber orchestra (1980­81), Starry Sky for percussion ensemble (1982), Man-Orchestra I for any instruments and tape (1982); Black Water, White Water, Old Stream for instruments and tape (1983), That, which is for any five instruments and piano (1983), Four Preludes for piano (1983), String Quartet (1984­85), Lapis, music for tape (1985), Old Style Pieces, music for tape (1985), Three Cassettes for three performers (1986), Poko, music for tape (1986), Brother John1s Struggle for flute, trombone, guitar, violin and percussion (1987), Three Songs Without Words for soprano and tape (1987), Nibiru for string orchestra and harpsichord (1987), Histoire I for tape (1988), Histoire II for clarinet, piano, synthesizer and tape (1988), Histoire III for harpsichord and tape (1989), Man-Orchestra II for computers and objects (1989), JingleJungle for voices and computers (1989), Borders of Nothing for computers (1990), Man-Nature, a collection of 16 graphical compositions (1991), Homage to Charles Ives for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, piano, percussion, viola and double-bass (1992), 14 Variations by Piotr Bikont and Krzysztof Knittel on 14 Variations by Edwin Morgan on 14 Words by John Cage for voices and computers (1992), Instant Reactions for voice, instruments, synthesizer and computer (1992), Negev for percussion instruments and synthesizer (1993), Between for piano and tape (1993), Sonatas da camera (Nos. 1­11) for instruments, voice, synthesizers and sampler (1993­2002), Homage to Barbara Zbro›yna for synthesizer and sampler (1997), surface en rotation, music for tape (1997), Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O LordŠ, psalms for choir and electronic sounds (2000), Spiegelverkehrte Reise for soprano, actor and electronics (2000), El maale rahamimŠ for choir and symphony orchestra (2001), Norwid Songs for soprano and piano (2001), Trio for optional melodic instruments (2001).
Stage works: detour, musical event for speaker, cello, piano, percussion and tapes (1974), Glückpavillon for Cathy, music theatre for tuba and tape (1978), Woman1s Voice (after poems by Rafa1 Wojaczek); ballet (1980), Light, monologue for actress (1981), Satan in Goray, libretto after Isaac Bashevis Singer (ballet, 1993), Der Erwählte, libretto after Thomas Mann (ballet, 1995), Awakenings, libretto after Oliver Sachs (ballet, 1998), The HeartPiece ­ double opera (together with John King; 1999).
Installations: The Legs (1993), Radio Sculpture (1994), Passage (1994).

Trio V2R (Grand River Trio)
I composed the piece to a commission from The Verdehr Trio and Michigan State University. It is in three sections and lasts about
19 minutes. It mainly uses the musical material dating from 2002, but
I have also employed some of my ideas and musical phrases from the late 1970s which I jotted down after my prolonged stay in the United States.
The piece is dedicated to Elsie Ludewig-Verdehr, Walter Verdehr and Silvia Roederer.

p.s. If I tried to describe the piece, I would probably do it with the following remarks: the aesthetic of the past, atonal structures clash with a thicket of consonances played ad libitum, based on simple scales and quasi-tonal centres. The construction gradually develops (or is rather reduced): from masses of sound which stem from wandering through the timbres of various scales and registers, thickened and thinned out Oclouds1 in the first section ­ through the virtuoso solo fragments of the middle section ­ to a combination of several thickly built and contrasted sound spaces which round off the pieceŠ Well, an attempt to capture the musical construction in words always encounters barriers which stem from the use of notions and signs from two entirely different areas of reality: a verbal description and an asemantic sound construction. This inability to find one1s bearing in describing music can unfortunately be likened to persistent Kafka-esque attempts to force the door open, when there is no key to it...
Krzysztof Knittel