KRAAK FEST 25 HIGHLIGHTS: Michaela Turcerová

How long have you been living in Copenhagen? How has the city been treating you? Are you enjoying the music scene over there?

I’ve been living now in Copenhagen for almost 5 years and before I came, I had heard a lot about the Scandinavian music scene and also the Rhythmic Music Conservatory – pretty unique genre-free school in Copenhagen, as being the melting pot for young musicians interested in creative music. And it was true, I’ve met here and listened to a huge amount of inspiring artists and their original, endlessly curious, creative, provoking, or radical work. That certainly formed my musical expression and helped me to figure out where it actually is, I belong and can contribute to.

My view on the city, and on living abroad in general, is changing every year though. It’s of course a very different game to stop being a student at the institution and have to deal with the practicalities. I feel sentimental each time I go back to Slovakia, therefore I try to schedule more musical activities there, so I can visit my family and go on a hike. But for now I think I get enough inspiration here in Copenhagen. I'm lucky to play a lot of various original music, my own music, or to create together with my friends, being part of a strong network, contributing to the diy culture, getting better at the language.. I’m traveling a lot abroad, which helps me to appreciate even more the return to a more quiet and calm cycle of the city, which from time to time appears.

When did you start playing the saxophone? And when did you start developing your own language with it?

I switched to the alto saxophone at the age of 13 and went through relatively lots of “trainings“. Even though I studied classical composition, I always considered myself primarily as an instrumentalist with creative tendencies, so I spent most of the practicing time and work on music with my instrument, first in the period of graduating from classical music, later with jazz studies. I wanted, and still want, to know more, and the shift happened when introduced to new music, avant-garde movements and improvised music. Listening and studying music of composers, improvisers and instrument-builders, who’re dedicated to the development of their own sonic vocabulary and perhaps using it in an open situation, is I think fascinating. So instead of the well-known cultural and musical behavior, there is a curiosity leading towards the unknown, in order to discover and cultivate a deeply personal sound universe. That is both attractive and really challenging to do. About around the time of me arriving to Copenhagen, I felt a need to re-invent methods for my instrumental development, I tried to be focused only on what is actually really interesting for me to play, I tried to generate several exercises on just one phenomena (for example overtones, or multiphonics) and create endless variations of my favourites. Simply put, I just really tried to be interested, or almost entertained, when I was playing. First, I was translating my discoveries into scores for bigger ensembles and it was only two years ago, when I decided to work on music for solo instruments. My ears wanted really hard to escape the traditional timbre of the saxophone, and I leaned more towards “physicality“, in opposition to “conceptuality“. Progressively I arrived into the set up with a mute and key clamps, allowing me to approach the body of the instrument in unusual ways, while exploring amplification as an important part of the whole process.

How was the experience of recording your first solo album? What can we expect from you in the future?

It was a very slow process of crystallization, with lots of excitement, detailed work which I love, but also lots of questions and doubts. Fortunately I received enormous support from people around, like the openness of ears of Simon Wetterstrøm Mariegaard, who recorded it, and Adam Badí Donoval, who mixed it and contributed with new dimension to the album, my partner Asger, who was part of the tiniest micro-decisions, and of course Jakub Juhás from the label mappa, thanks to whose work the music is being heard.
I have plenty of ideas where this music can grow – from large scale formats, like physically reconstructed saxophone, with triple amount of new keys, development of a custom-built amplification system, which I could use on different instruments in the future, the absolute transformation of the instrument’s body into a percussive, monstrous organism, or to expand this whole system into a bigger group of musicians, but now I’m focused on the smaller scale ideas – I try to focus on the live playing format, learning about the sound, trying to be focused and as sharp as possible with executing my ideas, creative using of a feedback, all in collaboration with Simon.

In your music, you seem to be a true explorer finding new ways to interact with the saxophone. Would you consider yourself adventurous on every level?

Hm, yes, I think I can see both in my music and “the outside-of-music life” traces of adventure and endurance. I like the unknown, long-term challenges, learning, development, playfulness, also adrenalin..

There are some greatposters,photos andvideos on your website! Tell us a bit more about them. In what way — if at all — is your visual work related to your sonic explorations?

Thank you! I used to think it’s much more connected, and at some point I was working more directly with visuals in my music – more implicitly in graphic scores for ensembles, or even more literally with translating concrete geometrical shapes into sound. I think I moved on from it and now the most appealing approach to music to me is the listening itself and the physicality I’ve already mentioned. Though I still love to draw my own hand-written scores, but only because of that graphical quality of it. Now I quite appreciate to have some intuitive, non-music related hobby in my life : )