Mykotony/Fiko-myko

Con­cert for fam­i­lies with chil­dren and work­shops with the Pol­ish Myco­log­i­cal Soci­ety as part of the 4th AżTak Festival.

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Mykotony is a ten­der, musi­cal space invit­ing con­tem­pla­tion of the mys­ter­ies of the life of fun­gi, explo­ration of the sounds of new music, and son­ic coop­er­a­tion among whole families.

Fun­gi, those well-known decom­posers of mat­ter, have inspired many con­tem­po­rary com­posers. John Cage remained under their spell for years, and Czech com­pos­er Václav Hálek even cre­at­ed a “Musi­cal Atlas of Fun­gi,” in which he notat­ed scores for 2,000 species of fun­gi. In Alek­san­dra Chmielewska’s “Mykotony,” we take inspi­ra­tion both from what fun­gi are capa­ble of and from the appear­ance of their bod­ies. As if under a micro­scope, we will “look close­ly” at small sounds: their length, tim­bre, pitch, and har­mon­ics. We will try to cap­ture the moment when indi­vid­ual sounds begin to form a com­po­si­tion — one that can be assem­bled and dis­as­sem­bled, some­what like build­ing blocks. The tit­u­lar “mykotony” is also a ref­er­ence to micro­tones, the small­est of inter­vals — com­mon in nature but rarely appear­ing in clas­si­cal music. And what if our ears had the abil­i­ty to enlarge micro­tones so as to see even small­er parts of them? In “Mykotony” per­haps it will be pos­si­ble to notice tim­bral nuances — both in the colours of the instru­ments and in the micro­scop­ic pho­tographs by Faruk Yeşi­lyurt, which will be pro­ject­ed dur­ing the work and help lis­ten­ers immerse them­selves in the sto­ry. As usu­al, the ĄsąBąble audi­ence will be invit­ed to par­tic­i­pate: hum­ming, move­ment, and imag­in­ing the shapes, colours, and names of non-exis­tent fun­gi — after all, only about 15% of fun­gal species have been dis­cov­ered to date. The mykotony await dis­cov­ery, and voice, vio­lin, clar­inet, and per­cus­sion will be our guides. Con­cert dura­tion: approx. 45 min.

Per­form­ers:

Mar­ta Grzywacz voice­Mar­ta Piórkows­ka vio­lin­Ju­lian Paproc­ki clar­inet­Ma­teusz Zawadz­ki percussion

Pro­duc­tion:

Music, elec­tron­ics: Alek­san­dra ChmielewskaV­i­su­al­i­sa­tions: Alek­san­dra Ołdak­Mi­cro­scop­ic pho­tographs: Faruk Yeşi­lyurt­Pro­duc­tion: Mar­ta Piórkowska­Con­cep­tion, dra­matur­gy, and artis­tic direc­tion — Anna Szawiel

After the con­cert we invite you to fam­i­ly myco­log­i­cal workshops!!!

The ĄsąBąble audi­ence is warm­ly invit­ed after the con­cert to our gar­den ter­race for mush­room work­shops. Dur­ing the meet­ing, experts from the Pol­ish Myco­log­i­cal Soci­ety will show how myceli­um devel­ops and explain the extra­or­di­nary role of fun­gi in the envi­ron­ment. Armed with binoc­u­lars and under the guid­ance of sci­en­tists, we will exam­ine the process of myceli­um growth on spe­cial micro­bi­o­log­i­cal sub­strates. We will touch and smell select­ed species, and we will also see herbar­i­um spec­i­mens which, though frag­ile, tell a sub­tle sto­ry about the envi­ron­ment in which they live. Mycol­o­gy (the sci­ence of fun­gi) in this guise becomes not only knowl­edge but also a sen­so­ry and cre­ative experience.

Work­shops will be led by:

Mar­ta Wrzosek — UW Pro­fes­sor, sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly inter­est­ed in fun­gal ecol­o­gy. She col­lab­o­rates with cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions (Teatr Powszech­ny, Zachę­ta, the Nation­al Muse­um in War­saw, Bunki­er Sztu­ki in Kraków). Recog­nised in the Pop­u­laris­er of Sci­ence com­pe­ti­tion by the Min­is­ter of Sci­ence and High­er Edu­ca­tion in 2019.

Mar­ta Tis­ch­er — Doc­tor of Nat­ur­al Sci­ences, cur­rent­ly a research assis­tant pro­fes­sor at the Insti­tute of Evo­lu­tion­ary Biol­o­gy in the Fac­ul­ty of Biol­o­gy at UW, sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly inter­est­ed in inter­ac­tions between fun­gi, arthro­pods, and bac­te­ria, and cur­rent­ly Pres­i­dent of the Pol­ish Myco­log­i­cal Society.

Maksy­mil­ian Nowak — Mas­ter’s stu­dent at the MISMaP Col­lege of the Uni­ver­si­ty of War­saw, cur­rent­ly com­plet­ing a the­sis at the Insti­tute of Evo­lu­tion­ary Biol­o­gy at UW, and also work­ing as an edu­ca­tor at the Bio­CEN Foun­da­tion, where he leads lab­o­ra­to­ry work­shops for sec­ondary and pri­ma­ry schools.

Tickets

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