Opening Performance Orchestra

 
Opening Performance Orchestra is a seven-member ensemble encompassing a wide genre span—from the 20th-century electronic thrusts of the musical avant-garde as far as contemporary Japanese noise music. Its own creations are based on fraction music, with the initial sound being digitally destroyed, fractured, and uncompromisingly rid of all its original attributes within the spirit of the credo “no melodies – no rhythms – no harmonies”. The results are original compositions (such as Spring Ceremony or Fraction Music, Evenfall, Creeping Waves) as well as reinterpretations of other composers' pieces that the ensemble feels to be in the same vein—cases in point being Inspirium Primum, referring to the material by Hiroshi Hasegawa, a Japanese noise music representative; Re:Broken Music, based on the destroyed music of the Czech Fluxus artist Milan Knížák; Chess Show, a distinctive John Cage reminiscence; Perceived Horizons, a tribute to musique concrète; The Noise of Art and Futurist Soirée, originating from the ideas and texts of the Italian Futurists and bringing to bear authentic instruments known as intonarumori.
During its existence, Opening Performance Orchestra has given a number of concerts, for example, at MaerzMusic, a contemporary music festival in Berlin (2014, Broken Re:broken); at the New Music Exposition international festival in Brno (2014, Broken Re:broken); at the Minimarathon of electronic music held as a part of the Days of Ostrava festival of contemporary music (2013, The Noise Of Art); at the Next festival of progressive music in Bratislava (2014, Fraction Music VII); at the Prague Industrial Festival (2006, Fraction Music, and 2008, Astropo); at the Wroclaw Industrial Festival (2007, Fraction Music II); at several previews of the Czech Concretists' Club, including a retrospective at Topièùv salon in Prague (2015, The Contours of Sounds); at the opening of the Membra Disjecta for John Cage exhibition at the DOX gallery in Prague (2012, Chess Show); at the National Gallery in Prague during the Art's Birthday party given by Czech Radio (2016, Futurist Soirée); and at Ostrava Days, in co-operation with Reinhold Friedl (2017, Chess Show).
Since 2010, Opening Performance Orchestra has regularly organised Noise Zone, an open audio-visual project mapping the noise scene, which has hosted, among others, Hiroshi Hasegawa, Astro, Merzbow, Schloss Tegal, Einleitungszeit, Birds Build Nests Underground, Instinct Primal, Magadan, Napalmed and others.
Since 2006, Opening Performance Orchestra has released CDs, mostly as self-publishers, but also with the Belgian label Sub Rosa (Broken Re:broken, together with Milan Knížák, October 2015) and the German label Psych KG (Fraction Elements, together with Hiroshi Hasegawa, August 2016). At the beginning of 2016, Opening Performance Orchestra recorded the composition Futurist Soirée, commissioned by Czech Radio, which was performed within the EBU international exchange network in November 2016.

(external link : www.o-p-o.cz)
 
 Opening Performance Orchestra - It\'s Not Quite That Inventive (Sixty Years with Broken Music) (2 CD)
2024
Sub Rosa
The album includes Milan Knížák's 1973 private recording BROKEN MUSIC, released as a multiple of forty copies by Armin Hundertmark in 1983 on Edition Hundertmark, and a live version of BROKEN REBROKEN, performed in January 2020 at the Museum of Czech Music in Prague by Milan Knížák, Petr Ferenc (aka Phaerentz) and Opening Performance Orchestra.
 Opening Performance Orchestra - Aktual University (CD)
2022
Sub Rosa
15.00 11.00 €
Two pieces based on Milan Knízak's canonical text Aktual University, dating from 1967, containing ten short lectures outlining the university's character—On Conflict, On Dreams, On Revolutions, On Love, On Belief, On Art, etc. These lectures were to serve as inspirational schemes for lectures, seminars and discussions held at an ideal university.
 Opening Performance Orchestra - Opening Performance Orchestra plays Phill Niblock - Four Walls Full Of Sound (CD)
2021
Sub Rosa
sold out
An electronic interpretation of the works of Phill Niblock by the Prague-based group Opening Performance Orchestra.
 Opening Performance Orchestra - Radio Music Extended (based on John Cage\'s Radio Music) (CD)
2020
Sub Rosa
The composition Radio Music Extended, performed by Opening Performance Orchestra, draws upon the concept John Cage brought to bear in his piece Radio Music from 1956.
 Opening Performance Orchestra - The Noise Of Art (2 vinyl LP)
2019
Sub Rosa
22.00 16.00 €
This album contains seven compositions, created by the Opening Performance Orchestra, Blixa Bargeld, Luciano Chessa and Fred Möpert. All the pieces relate to the theme of Futurism and employ intonarumori, instruments invented and used more than a century ago by the Italian Futurists in their noise compositions.
 Opening Performance Orchestra - The Noise Of Art (CD)
2019
Sub Rosa
sold out
This album contains seven compositions, created by the Opening Performance Orchestra, Blixa Bargeld, Luciano Chessa and Fred Möpert. All the pieces relate to the theme of Futurism and employ intonarumori, instruments invented and used more than a century ago by the Italian Futurists in their noise compositions.
 Opening Performance Orchestra - Merzopo (2 CD)
2018
Sub Rosa
sold out
A collaborative 2-CD album by Japan noise legend Masami Akita alias Merzbow and Czech seven-member ensemble Opening Performance Orchestra. The first CD features four folk-inspired Merzbow compositions. The second CD gathers two live recordings of the Opening, made in Tokyo and Prague.


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