Vladimír Hirsch (born July 3, 1954 in Benešov, former Czechoslovakia, today Czechia). Czech avantgarde composer of modern classical forms, instrumentalist and sound alchemist with specific style, characterized by polymodal composition and complexity of sonic means of expression, called by him “integrated music”. His work is represented not only solo projects — he is founder and leader of ensembles Skrol, Aghiatrias and Zygote and member of Czech-American project Luminar Ax.

Biography

Vladimír Hirsch has been composing since 1976, when, as pianist and organ player, he started to compose small romantic and classicist compositions for these instruments. Soon, though, he abandons these compositions for a longer period and takes up experimental rock and jazz music up to 1986. He was a member (keyboard player and vocalist) of experimental post-punk group Der Marabu (1986–95).

In 1987, he decided to focus on classical musical form as well, nevertheless with an attempt to enhance the action potential by modern means of expression and by searching for specific processes. He attempts to resume the tradition of 20th century Czech music and draws inspiration from first Leoš Janáček, later also Miloslav Kabeláč, but eventually attains his own clear-cut position both in tone creative principles as in composition style and opinion on orchestration and the role of not quite musical components in it. Vladimír Hirsch’s music is a kind of extrapolation of the combination of contemporary classical music, (where was initially also inspired by Giacinto Scelsi or György Ligeti) on the one side and dark ambient, industrial and noise components on the other side, which, through mutual infiltration by basic theses and antitheses, brought to life as a fully homogenous structure. Compositions are based on grasping both ways in a manner, which would allow them to partake of each other’s principal formal attributes, both on the basis of violent confrontation and of mutual empathy, which should lead to a unification of seemingly irreconcilable worlds. This happens with the help of musical symbolism of their transsubstantiation into a single, indivisible essence, which act represents the metaphorical and philosophical principle of Hirsch’s “integrated” musical form.