PARALLEL ACTIVITIES

1. PEDAGOGY

Regular collaborations between music educational structures and Kryštof Mařatka have led to the creation of works for young musicians. These are so-called "pedagogical" compositions created for specific classes, such as Pinecones - mini-pieces for various instrumental and vocal ensembles (2016) or The Invisible Forest - melodramatic fables on the initiation to music (2017) for actor and orchestra of young and more advanced musicians, commissioned by the Philharmonie de Paris for the DEMOS project, the goal of which is to democratize the access to the practice of classical music to children from neighbourhoods or rural areas insufficiently provided with cultural institutions. Other pieces are worth mentioning: Morana - Welcoming Spring in Bohemia for youth string orchestra, inspired by a traditional folk custom (2013) or, for beginner pianists, the All-You-Can-Eat Ice Creams - easy piano pieces cycle (2013 - 2016).

Kryštof Mařatka has been invited and / or his works have been programmed by various music education institutions: Philharmonie de Paris - DEMOS project, CNSMD of Paris, CNSMD of Lyon, Prague Conservatoire, Hochschule of Trossingen (Germany), CRR of Paris, Tours, Toulouse and Versailles, Conservatoire of the 13th arrondissement of Paris, Conservatoires of the Community of Agglomeration of Val de Bièvre, Conservatoire of Combs-la-Ville, Academies of Music of Saint-Cézaire, Les Arcs, Prades and MusicAlp, Orléans Brin d’herbe Competition...

2. TRADITIONAL MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

Traditional musical instruments constitute one of the worlds that have profoundly influenced Kryštof Mařatka’s musical thought, and he himself owns a collection of these instruments, from Bohemia and Moravia. Mostly made of wood, these instruments are manufactured and come from workshops of makers from working-class backgrounds whose characteristic is to transmit their values ​​and their astonishing know-how from generation to generation, and practically in anonymity.

Kryštof Mařatka plays these instruments during meetings with the public, student workshops, conferences and radio broadcasts. They are instruments such as kamzičí roh, nosová flétna, koncovka, bezovák, hadrářská píšťalka, pastýřská trouba, kostěná flétna... In playing improvisations and folk tunes on these instruments, Kryštof Mařatka connects classical music with popular music and demonstrates the influences, differences and links between these two universes, the elaborate musical expressions of which are and will remain infinite.

Two works from the composer’s catalogue are to be mentioned. One directly uses the instruments mentioned here above: Báchorky - pastoral fables for viola, clarinet, piano and Czech musical folk instruments (2016). The atmosphere of the whole piece stems from the combination of the "sophisticated" sounds of the piano, viola and clarinet with the rustic and "archaic" sounds of popular instruments. The second composition, written for orchestra, does not directly use the instruments in question but only evokes their sonorities and colours using the common instruments of the orchestra: Druhopisy (Paraphrases) - workshop of musical folk instruments from the Czech countries for orchestra (2013).

3. FILM DIRECTOR

Kryštof Mařatka is the author of the film From Your Life (74' min, in Czech with French or English subtitles), which he shot between 2000 and 2012. A book/DVD (French, English and Czech) has been published in 2016 about the creation of the film (Tomáš Doruška Productions - Prague).

The film’s synopsis (by Jean-Gaspard Páleníček):
The Mařatkas are an illustrious family in Bohemia: from Josef Mařatka, great sculptor, pupil of Rodin, to Kryštof Mařatka, contemporary composer. Between the two, a fascinating character, son of the first, father of the second: Zdeněk Mařatka. An eminent physician born in 1914, this man has known eight different political regimes: the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the First Czechoslovak Republic, Czechoslovakia amputated of the Sudeten regions, the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia, and the Third Republic of 1945-1948, the different periods of the communist regime, the post-Velvet Revolution Czechoslovakia and finally the Czech Republic of today. He was awarded the 1997 Vision Award and the 2009 Dagmar and Václav Havel Foundation Award. For his 95th birthday, his son decided to shoot a film that would be dedicated to him. Touching, funny, melancholy... Against the background of philosophical reflection and discussions between several generations of a family, it is the whole of the 20th century that we see emerge here.

Screenings of the film are possible from DVD, Blu-ray, USB stick or external hard disk.

4. DOCUMENTARY FILMS

Several documentary films about Kryštof Mařatka’s work and musical universe have been produced:

- “Three Generations of Mařatkas” - (52’ min, Czech Television)

- “Birth of an imaginary” - (26’ min, Karl More Productions) broadcast on the European television channel MEZZO

- “A violin under the pillow” - (52’ min, LGM Productions) broadcast on the European television channel MEZZO