Jagoda Szmytka

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Jagoda Szmytka, born 1982 in Legnica (Poland)
She inquires into music that is more than just sonorous matter defined by narrative of sound, but an experience and a philosophy. In her work she combines sound, visual, textual and stage elements as integral parts of composition.
Jagoda Szmytka studied composition with Beat Furrer and Pierluigi Billone in Graz and Frankfurt/Main. Since 2010 she works on her postgraduate degree supervised by Wolfgang Rihm in Karlsruhe. She has studied additionally in masterclasses and courses a.o.: Voix Nouvelles (Fondation Royaumont), Acanthes (Metz), MATRIX (SWR Freiburg), the Darmstadt International Summer Course for New Music, Seminario Permanante de Composición (Valencia). Before she moved on to composing, she studied art history, philosophy and theory of music. The profound interest in humanities which she developed at the time formed the basis of her later musical pursuits.
Jagoda Szmytka has received scholarships and grants from various foundations a.o.: ÖAAD, DAAD, a scholarship from the Baden-Württemberg Art Foundation, Alfred-Töpfer-Stipendium, the Wolfgang Rihm Scholarship of the Hoepfner Foundation, an artist grant funded by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. In 2011 she was composer-in-residency at ZKM Karlsruhe and she was awarded The Staubach Honoraria from the IMD (International Music Institute Darmstadt). In 2012 Szmytka will work at La Muse en Circuit (Paris) on the sound installation commissioned by the Fondation Royaumont and in 2013 will hold a fellowship at the Herrenhaus Edenkoben.
Pieces by Szmytka have been performed at numerous festivals including the Warsaw Autumn, Sacrum Profanum (Cracow), CODES festival (Lublin), Musica Electronica Nova, Musica Polonica Nova (Wroc?aw), Acanthes (Metz), ENSEMS (Valencia), 44th the Summer Courses (Darmstadt), Ohren auf Europa (Düsseldorf), Tokyo Experimental Festival, Audio Art (Cracow) or IREAM (Lisbon) as well at ZKM Karlsruhe, Experimental Studio des SWR Freiburg, Abbaye Royaumont or ADK Berlin.

“Jagoda Szmytka employs a variety of media and material without discerning between sound and image, philosophical idea and touch. She seeks sounds, gestures, and any forms or expression and thought that our culture and aesthetic sensibilities do not sanction (…)”.
“Szmytka’s music is not sonic design, but a laboratory of the body (…)”.
“Her intellectual, aesthetic, and sensual experiences are myriad. In her work, she employs a variety of media and material, building layered and rhizomatic semantic-aesthetic fields. She does not discern between sound and image, philosophical idea and touch“.
Monika Pasiecznik
Tri par année. Les pièces les plus recentes apparaissent d'abord

Groupe de Chambre (2 - 4 instruments)


Sky-me, type-me (2011)
Per ._o (2008)

Ensemble (10 - 19 instruments)


Verb(a)renne life ! (2009)
Just Before After (2008)