So now it is official: Anne-May Krüger and I are writing an opera to be premiered at the Schwetzinger Festspiele 2025.

With a strong kick-off in Leverkusen last September and with a new dynamic combination of quartet friends – Karolina Öhman, Stefan Preyer, and João Carlos Pacheco – ...

Yesterday’s performance of Once around the World topped off my artist-in-residence season with the Neubrandenburg Philharmonie. ...

Yesterday in Berlin: The premiere of two new works for the oh-so-talented and oh-so-dedicated oh-so-exciting Concept Store Quartet. ...

In spite of all the Corona turmoil, our new chamber opera Die Katze, die ihre eigenen Wege ging (The cat who walked by herself) did finally have its premiere

The process pieces by Karlheinz Stockhausen, such as Plus-Minus (1963), Prozession (1967), or Spiral, (1968) transfer to the performers an unusually large amount of responsibility regarding the sound material and its transformations. In this context, one could say that the performers are co-composers, or at the least arrangers, since they determine to a great extent not only the content, but also the form of the composition. Generally, the transformation of the material is notated using “plus” and “minus” signs indicating an increase or decrease of certain parameters of the sound in relation to the previous one.

In celebration of their 30-year ensemble anniversary, the Swedish brass quintet Stockholm Chamber Brass asked me to write a work for them. They gave me no limitations, no stipulations, and didn't seem to have any expectations of the composition other than that it be worth the effort they would put into performing it. I was honored by the proposition, and it was quickly evident to me that my composition for such a jubilee could go either of two ways: I could write a party piece, something fun, short, and sweet, or I could write something intricate and challenging, a musical endeavor that taps into their tremendous chamber music artistry. Out of respect for the idealism, stamina, optimism, and enthusiasm each member must channel to an ensemble, I decided to write a demanding piece of 20-some minutes. The decision was easy. Figuring out what to call the piece was not. Before the title Open Circle crystallized, I thought to call it What it takes, because this group obviously has what it takes to keep the ensemble ideal alive for 30 years. Then I thought to call it !, because in a performance, a brass player needs to be an exclamation point and not a question mark – a geeky insider theme that the trombonist of the quintet, Jonas Bylund, and I spoke about in the summer when I was composing the piece. The composition, however, is a sort of portrait of Stockholm Chamber Brass, and at the same time a depiction of the roles that the musicians play within the ensemble. Punctuated with ensemble passages, each player takes the stage for a solo, supported by the rest of the group. Uncharacteristically for me, but out of personal affinity for ensemble, I have given many of these soli and interludes descriptive captions such as "decisive, yet flexible“, "... with patience..." , "brilliant, but modest“, "warm, but mighty", or "impassioned, yet reasonable". Being a brass player myself, I could almost feel the player producing the sounds I was writing down. Furthermore, I found myself inside the ensemble and could reflect about what it means to communicate in a chamber music setting. The musicians huddle together, they discuss, they empathize, they compromise, they get „on the same page“ – all this mostly through non-verbal means. A well-functioning chamber music group can be a small version of a social idyll, self-contained and balanced, like a circle. Yet the musicians do all of this, not for themselves, of course, but for the audience, opening the circle to include you, the listener; therefore the title, Open Circle.

recording: https://soundcloud.com/mikesvoboda/svoboda_open-circle-20181007

Having grown up playing in concert bands, I am still thrilled by the massive sound this gathering of winds, brasses, and percussion offers. Having rewrite my Love Hurts a few years back and appreciated more rhythmic precision of the concert band compared to orchestra, I was happy for the opportunity to rewrite this concerto for saxophone, recently premiered by Marcus Weiss with the Basel Sinfonietta. The premiere performance of the version with concert band took place on July 15th, 2018 in Toledo, at the Festival Internacional de Música La Mancha with the Festival Concert Band, Sebastián Heras, conductor, and the soloist Pedro Pablo Cámara. A bootleg recording of the performance can be heard here: https://soundcloud.com/mikesvoboda/wittgenstein-twombly-for-saxophone-and-concert-band

More information: https://mikesvoboda.net/compositions-all/articles/wittgenstein-twombly-version-for-concert-band.html

Mike Svoboda will be playing Mixed Feelings (2001) together with the Staatsorchester Stuttgart the German premiere of a concerto for trombone and orchestra, written by Kurt Schwertsik (*1934) at the New Years Concert of the Stuttgarter Oper. Dennis Russel Davis will conduct and there will also be a waltz of Richard Strauss, an ouverture of Hans Werner Henze and a sinfonia of Joseph Haydn. So you can expect a rapturous farewell into this new years’s evening. 

With three concerts of Mike Svoboda compositions, the composer was featured at the Festival Zeitgenossen (contemporaries) in the city of Heidenheim, Germany from the 24th to 26th of June, 2015. Alongside a solo performance by Mike Svoboda, there was the German premiere of his Die Bücher der Zeiten, an hour long work for three female voices, trombone and percussion, performed by the Mike Svoboda Ensemble. The third concert was a portrait with the Ensemble AUDITE NOVA under the direction of Maddelena Ernst. Among other compositions it included the German premiere of the quintet Eunoia and 20 French Songs.

Together with the soprano Golda Schultz, Mike Svoboda premiered a new work by the Swiss composer Beat Furrer at the Festival Dialoge in Salzburg in November 2015. It was part of a recital that the singer Golda Schultz gave on the 28th of November at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.

In January 2014, Mike Svoboda signed some 20 past works and all new works exclusively with publisher Boosey & Hawkes. Besides the orchestra works and works for the stage, some of the most recent compositions such as Luminous Flux (2014) for 8 voices and percussion, Eunoia (2014) for female voice, trombone, violoncello, piano, and percussion are now available for hire and sale. Music for Trombone, Piano and Percussion (2011) as well as Music for Trombone and Ensemble (2012) will be available at the end of April.

Mike Svoboda at Boosey & Hawkes: http://www.boosey.com/pages/cr/composer/composer_main.asp?site-lang=en&composerid=100116

Eunoia on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi8EddpHgIU

Luminous Flux on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/mikesvoboda/mike-svoboda-luminous-flux-for-8-voices-and-percussion

The Stuttgart organization IndieOper e.V. was offering an exciting workshop/competition for new works of music theater for young audiences. In two workshops in May and October 2015, young composers were coached by a team – Manfred Weiß, stage direction, Sarah Sun, voice, Mike Svoboda, composition, Johannes Fuchs, dramaturgy on writing for this special and important genre. A final presentation of three commissioned pieces from the workshop participants were presented in March 2016. More information and registration: http://www.indieoper.de/pitch.html