Music design for solo dance performance by Ariadna Gironès Mata (45 minutes).
SO?!WHAT is a combines choreography, visual and plastic arts. The artist dances through different physicalities as she bends, distorts, and transforms her body.
composer, performer, producer and teacher of music
Music design for solo dance performance by Ariadna Gironès Mata (45 minutes).
SO?!WHAT is a combines choreography, visual and plastic arts. The artist dances through different physicalities as she bends, distorts, and transforms her body.
Two new iterations of previously composed song cycles:
Imaginary Conversations (2017-2019)
‘Imaginary Conversations’ covers concerns about interpersonal polarisation. Petrovic performed these songs in house concerts.
Veneer (2022)
Veneer was premiered at Rewire Festival 2022, as a live electronic interpretation named ‘Vox Populi’. This studio adaptation includes live singing and moves away from the layered abstractions. It’s about social masking.
Music duo with Ada Bania, making Alternative EDM songs about conquering inner demons.
Tracklist so far:
A compilation album featuring highlights of my composed music over the past decade, commissioned by contemporary theatre and dance.
To be released at Moving Furniture Records in 2025.
Music composition and mastering all audio for a performance with elements from contemporary dance, installation art and live rap (90 minutes).
Cherish Menzo & GRIP & Frascati Producties
Body can you become hypothetical, a galaxy, in full gear acceleration, a liquid star monster, failing to die?
In her new creation, Cherish Menzo and her onstage partner Camilo Mejía Cortés look for ways to detach their bodies from the way they are perceived and the daily reality in which they move. Among other things, they look up to the sky, at dark matter and at black holes that meet and collide to give birth to a new, (afro)futuristic and enigmatic body. DARKMATTER wants to get rid of the biased way of looking at one’s own body, at that of the other, and at the stories we attribute to them. Together, they throw their bodies into a complex conversation that they want to both enter into and transcend – a duality that feeds the performance.
For more information, see the website.
Setlist:
Choosing Freedom is my celebration of letting music ring free. For this purpose I made the instrument GEST to approach my own intuition for the creation and performance of electronic music. GEST transforms hand motions that break a light into digital sound gestures based on pre-composed acoustic sources.
With this work I place musical conventions under pressure. This occurs in the sound itself, its narratives and in my presentation of it. The performance covers a set of pieces that each resemble an aspect that I had to let go of, in order to find my freedom:
Choosing Freedom was a tipping point in my artistic career. This work is presented in smaller and underground venues, but also at local international festivals such as Rewire and Gaudeamus. A concert registration was released at Moving Furniture Records. The album is covered in magazines like Gonzo (NL) and Positionen (GER). An adaption of the last piece toured Europe and Canada as part of the critically acclaimed DARKMATTER. Yet, as a solo performance Choosing Freedom deserves more international presentations. As my contribution to the celebration of expressive emancipation.
The custom-built GEST allows the performer to design and play electronic music in an intuitive way, turning hand gestures and light sensors into an interface for musical expression. It’s an environment for both composing pieces based on audio recordings and performing structures with indeterminate elements.
Choosing Freedom
This solo act (and album) allows the artist to explore the outer edges of music, subverting categorical notions of what music should sound like.
Composed and performed by Gagi Petrovic. This work has been performed at festivals such as, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Rewire, GOLF and Overkill. It will be released in 2021 at Moving Furniture Records. This work has been premiered as ‘GEST x DPB’.
Maya & Gagi: Constellations
Composed and performed by Maya Fridman and Gagi Petrovic. These pieces have been performed at festivals such as Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Soundsofmusic and miscellaneous venues.
Vox Populi
Composed and performed by Petrovic, premiered in June 2021. Made possible by FPK Werkbijdrage Muziekauteur.
Current state of GEST
New work for GEST and ensemble Modelo62. To be created and premiered in 2023-2024.
Artist Statement:
Concept:
Current state:
A studio album consisting of seven new pieces. Released at Moving Furniture Records.
1. Disrupt2. Obstruct3. Shatter4. Rejuvenate5. Illuminate (hiervan kun je een pre-master versie beluisteren)6. Erupt7. Arise
This work is made possible by Performing Arts Fund NL. It will be released at Moving Furniture Records in 2023.
Solo act for GEST (and voice).
‘Veneer’ sees Petrovic embracing the more conventional role of the singer-songwriter. The song cycle consists of three pieces about social masking.
Setlist:
This work is made possible by Performing Arts Fund NL. An electronic interpretation was premiered during Rewire Festival 2022. In 2024 Petrovic revised this work to include live singing, under the new name ‘Veneer’.
Composition for choir SATB, on poetry by Elea Bekkers.
For the Plopp! Festival in Saarbrücken, Germany four artists came together to create a new musical and performative installation.
The exhibition by Aimée Zito Lema in Oude Kerk covers its politically turbulent history.
For the finissage of her exhibition and the goodbye celebration of the artistic director, my job was to musically reinterpret 26 poems based on 6 questions and 200 official letters revolving around recent tumult regarding contemporary art presented in the church.
A new piece for GEST and 5 poets.
Concept:
Duration: 30 minutes
Composers:
This event was planned in 2020 but has been postponed due to COVID-19.
Current state:
Compositions for three voices (SAB), on poems by Elea Bekkers.
Performers
Current state:
A double CD of abstract electronic music with Matthijs Kouw, released as MFR090 at label Moving Furniture Records.
CD1
Matthijs Kouw – Irradiance
Matthijs Kouw – Remembrance
Matthijs Kouw – Absorbance
CD2
Gagi Petrovic – Vigilance
Gagi Petrovic – Diligence
Gagi Petrovic – Remnants
Gagi Petrovic – Depressant
Gagi Petrovic – Insignificant
Concept
Philosopher of science Isabelle Stengers has studied the operations of states and their mobilization of technical practices to serve a presupposed general interest, which involves the production of rules and norms. Such rules and norms are blind to forms of knowledge that are denigrated as ‘local’ and ‘traditional’, and feature the correlative elimination of what does not conform and cannot be standardized – in other words, what is recalcitrant to objective evaluation. Anything that resists subsumption to technical rationality is seen as a threat to public order (Isabelle Stengers, In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism, pp.73-4).
The eight tracks on ‘Recalcitrance’ examine abstract topics that range from metaphysical speculation and psychological investigation to reflections on the process of creation itself. Taking a shared set of source sounds as their starting point, Matthijs Kouw and Gagi Petrovic invite listeners to defy what Stengers describes as technical rationality. Recalcitrant subjects ask new questions. They allow the currently dominant reductionist mindset obsessed with productivity to be unsettled by space for reflection and quiet contemplation.
Band member since October 2019: composition, keys and electronics. Activities postponed due to COVID-19.
Members:
Composition for Trash Panda Collective.
Concept:
Released on ‘Moving Music: sounds from the rocking chair’ at Moving Furniture Records.
Choosing Freedom is my celebration of letting music ring free. For this purpose I made the instrument GEST to approach my own intuition for the creation and performance of electronic music. GEST transforms hand motions that break a light into digital sound gestures based on pre-composed acoustic sources.
With this work I place musical conventions under pressure. This occurs in the sound itself, its narratives and in my presentation of it. The performance covers a set of pieces that each resemble an aspect that I had to let go of, in order to find my freedom:
Choosing Freedom was a tipping point in my artistic career. This work is presented in smaller and underground venues, but also at local international festivals such as Rewire and Gaudeamus. A concert registration was released at Moving Furniture Records. The album is covered in magazines like Gonzo (NL) and Positionen (GER). An adaption of the last piece toured Europe and Canada as part of the critically acclaimed DARKMATTER. Yet, as a solo performance Choosing Freedom deserves more international presentations. As my contribution to the celebration of expressive emancipation.
Composed for Dodecavember 2018, organised by composer Hinse Mutter.
Concept:
Duration: 5 minutes.
Premiered in YouTube stream.
Concept, poetry, composition and performance of a song cycle for voice and piano.
Three pieces based on observations regarding interpersonal polarisation:
“Often I witness a lack of listening among people that have an opposing perspective on something. It appears as if assumptions, on what someone might represent, resonate louder than what that someone actually says. Projected anger and misplaced fear follow while it’s actually more like a severe misunderstanding.
So far, I don’t think this attitude only occurs on a specific topic or among specific (groups of) people, although it’s extra clear in political debates, or on topics regarding ‘truth’. I hear protection of ‘us’ and I see how this results in polarisation, keeping ‘them’ out while keeping ‘us’ safe from any blame. This way we create a distance which is artificial, counter productive and simply not necessary.“
Three pieces, with a total duration of ca. 20 minutes:
Composed and performed by Gagi Petrovic (piano and voice).
Current state:
Composition and performance in musical duo with cellist Maya Fridman.
C0-created pieces, under the name ‘Constellations’:
These works have been performed in multiple festivals, such as Gaudeamus, Soundsofmusic, and other venues.
Composition for voice and soprano saxophone.
Concept:
Duration: 3 minutes
Premiered during Grachtenfestival, aired on Radio 4.
Organiser of, and composer/singer for, concerts with new music. Assistance in artistic direction of Albert Manders, fundraising, budgeting, stagehand and performance.
Members:
Concept & Composition by Zeno van den Broek and Gagi Petrovic. For vocal ensemble (SSBBB), live electronics (performative objects) and organ.
Background
In the summer of 2014 Gaudeamus brought together audio-visual artist Zeno van den Broek (b. 1982) and composer Gagi Petrovic (b. 1986) and commissioned a large scale composition project. The electro-acoustic piece Ob-literate is the duo’s resulting work for organ, vocal ensemble, electronics and custom built performative objects – world premiered at Nicolaikerk, Utrecht on 6 March 2016.
Drawing inspiration from articles revolving around the philosophical text The Destructive Character by Walter Benjamin, furthermore distilling words and concepts from interpretations by Dick Raaijmakers and the poem Étui by Adam Staley Groves, the two artists constructed a work which is intense and alienating in its deconstructive dismantling to create space for something altogether new.
“Starting out Ob-literate presents itself as a dense, intangible moving mass of sound. Little cracks offer a view to what’s hidden beneath. Following an explosion, constituent elements are thrown wide, moving through separating paths – towards isolation. On their own all ‘particules’ find their equilibrium, without actively engaging in relations, although there might be some harmony or friction. A stray element deserts and the balance is rocked into implosion. High pressure forces connections, leading to collapse on itself. With the veil of obscurance lifted: the mark has been made, but damage was done by uncovering the underlying message and the disastrous disintegration is revealed. The storm of this exhilarating centrifugal composition throws up atomised memories of melodic syntax, hints of a phrase or just a word. In Ob-literate these tiny points reference musical coherence and terra firma in a buzzing rhizomatic web of contingent yet tightly controlled aural material. Ultimately Ob-literate blows holes in card houses of fixed ideas or walled-off bubbles – throws open windows and points to the clearest of blue skies as a tabula rasa for our cacophonous times.” [Liner notes by Sven Schlijper-Karssenberg]
Album Release
Ob-literate has been released on vinyl through the new collaboration between Gaudeamus and Unsounds: SOUNDS OF THE YOUNG AVANT-GARDE VOL. 02. Gaudeamus foundation and the independent label Unsounds are indispensable actors in the avant-garde and new music field, operating internationally from their common base in the Netherlands. With the Sounds of the Young Avant-Garde Vinyl Collection, they collaborate to present some of the most forward moving sounds in contemporary music, as they are created today by young and mid-career makers. The works are original commissions by Gaudeamus and are selected, produced and released by Unsounds. This joint venture secures a new lease of life for these works apart from and beyond the live music stages, ensuring the most thrilling music of our day and age is preserved as veritable future classics.
Ob-literate was commissioned by Gaudeamus Muziekweek // Supported by Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Fonds21 and Dutch Performing Arts NL.
Composition and music production of electro-acoustic work.
Duration: 20 minutes, in 4 parts.
Concept:
Released on double EP ‘dp[a] + hsh’ at Moving Furniture Records, on CD and digital.
Composition and software design for flute and speaker.
Concept:
Performed by Albert Manders in Amsterdam (NL) and Margaret Lancester in New York (USA).
Composition of ‘There is nothing’ and coordinating an international collaboration.
Description:
Composition, coordination and production for a moving ensemble of speakers. Composition with Soundlings member Mark IJzerman.
Concept:
Duration: 15 minutes
Songcycles is a coproduction of Soundlings and Rosa Ensemble, with support from Gemeente Utrecht and Culturele Zondagen.
Composition for extended double bass, performed by Dario Calderone. Patch design for live electronics with Tijs Ham.
Concept:
Duration: 9 minutes
Premiered in Graz, Austria, during Impuls Academy 2015.
Performed across Europe, in festivals such as Gaudeamus.
Composition for recorder solo.
Concept:
Duration: 10 minutes.
Dedicated to the fruitful collaborations with Zsofia Pásztói, premiered during her final exams at the Conservatory of Utrecht.
Composition for soprano and snare drum.
Concept:
Duration: 5 minutes.
Premiered in a basement in Rotterdam.
Composition for voice, harp and live electronics.
Excerpt of foreword:
“This piece is my response to Dick Raaijmaker’ response (1999) to Walter Benjamin’s ‘The Destructive Character’ (1931). With a selection of their words, I’m not trying to unfold some sort of narrative or morale, it just so happens that certain phrases by both authors intruiged me a lot – and still do.”
Duration: 8 minutes
Premiered as part of Coalescence by Soundlings & ROSA Ensemble & Insomnio at RASA Utrecht.
Special Mentions:
Composition of the piece ‘stRrrct’ for a concert experience, as part of Soundlings. Singing in the piece ‘Het heeft wel potentie’ by Dianne Verdonk.
Concept:
Duration: 30 minutes.
A collaboration between Soundlings, Insomnio & Rosa Ensemble commissioned by Gaudeamus Muziekweek
Composer and singer for concerts with new music. Production of performances and sound art installations. Activities include:
Projects:
Composition for voice and piano.
Concept:
Duration: 4 minutes
Premiered during ‘New Songs for the End of Time’ at Codarts Amsterdam. Performed in multiple ocassions, by various musicians.
Composition of choir piece (SATB) for Haarlem Voices.
Concept:
Duration: 6-7 minutes.
Performed by Haarlem Voices and Kamerkoor JIP in multiple concerts. This piece has been released on the ‘best of’ album by JIP and can be found on Spotify.
Composition and system design of duet for alto flute and live electronics. Performed by Albert Manders and interactive software.
This project was the graduation piece of Gagi Petrovic and is made in close collaboration with Albert Manders.
Concept:
Duration: 15 minutes:
Special Mentions:
https://soundcloud.com/gagipetrovic/the-light-that-blinds-you
Custom Made Music is a group of instrument builders and musicians.
Background
Concept
Duration: 45 minutes.
The series was a succes and toured through The Netherlands in a variety of traditional and unconventional venues, such as basements, musea, festivals and concert halls.
Composers:
Composition for solo recorder and live electronics. Performed by Zsofia Pásztói, electronics & system design with Tijs Ham.
Duration: 10 minutes:
Concept:
Premiered at the Nikolaïkerk, Utrecht.
Composition for chamber ensemble (flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone quartet, trumpet, bass baritone (voice), harp and grand piano).
Concept:
Premiered at Muziekhuis Utrecht.
Composition for contemporary gamelan ensemble ‘Ensemble Gending‘ and live electronics.
Duration: 5 minutes.
Premiered during Gaudeamus Muziekweek 2012
Composition for chamber ensemble. Version 1 is for alto flute, bass clarinet, wind gong and grand piano. Version 2 is for alto flute, bass clarinet, double bass and upright piano.
Concept:
Premiered at Badcuyp Amsterdam by ensemble Passing Sounds. Performances during Gaudeamus Session and other concerts of Passing Sounds.
Ensemble piece for flute, clarinette, trumpet, music stands and 8-speaker live electronics.
Duration: 10 minutes
Premiered at Nikolaïkerk, Utrecht (NL).
Concept:
Composition and performance of choir piece (SMzATB) for Haarlem Studenten Koor, on a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926).
Concept:
from Traumgekrönt (1896), XVII:
Weltenweiter Wandrer,
walle fort in Ruh…
also kennt kein andrer
Menschenleid wie du.
Wenn mit lichtem Leuchten
du beginnst den Lauf,
schlägt der Schmerzen die feuchten
Augen zu dir auf.
Drinnen liegt – als riefen
sie dir zu: Versteh! –
tief in ihre Tiefen
eine Welt voll Weh…
Tausend Tränen reden
ewig ungestillt,
und in einer jeden
spiegelt sich dein Bild.
Duration: 7 minutes.
Premiered at the Philharmonie Haarlem (Stadsschouwburg).
Solo, for recorder or concert flute. Premiered during Passing Sounds (2013) at Badcuyp Amsterdam.
Duration: 4 minutes
Concept:
Solo dance performance by Benjamin Kahn, premiering in Marseille (FR).
Nonverbal theater performance by Davy Pieters, production of Theater Rotterdam.
Not all is lost is a performance about bodies. About bodies caring for other bodies. About the power of our mutual interdependence. About our fragile need for the other. What does it mean to care? What does it mean to be cared for?
Pieters links the element earth to the young adult stage of life. In doing so, she creates room for growth, but also for decay, death and silence. The performers share the floor with a living, earthly landscape. In this evocative physical performance, body and landscape together tell a panoramic story about care and neglect.
Composed Pieces:
Duration: 75 minutes.
Dutch tour: March 22 – May 27, 2023
Music composition and mastering all audio for a performance with elements from contemporary dance, installation art and live rap (90 minutes).
Cherish Menzo & GRIP & Frascati Producties
Body can you become hypothetical, a galaxy, in full gear acceleration, a liquid star monster, failing to die?
In her new creation, Cherish Menzo and her onstage partner Camilo Mejía Cortés look for ways to detach their bodies from the way they are perceived and the daily reality in which they move. Among other things, they look up to the sky, at dark matter and at black holes that meet and collide to give birth to a new, (afro)futuristic and enigmatic body. DARKMATTER wants to get rid of the biased way of looking at one’s own body, at that of the other, and at the stories we attribute to them. Together, they throw their bodies into a complex conversation that they want to both enter into and transcend – a duality that feeds the performance.
For more information, see the website.
Setlist:
Duration: 80 minutes.
Composition, sound design, co-creation and music production for solo theatre by Aileen Pfauth.
Concept:
Duration: 60 minutes.
Premiered at Fringe Festival.
Words of the director and actor:
Composition and music production for contemporary dance by Danshuis Haarlem, integrating and mastering it with existing music.
Concept:
Duration: 45 minutes.
Arrangement of existing music, adding some of mine and sound mastering for contemporary dance by Benjamin Kahn
Composition and music production for contemporary dance duet by Mouna Laroussi, a resident at Dansmakers Amsterdam.
Concept:
Premiered at Dansmakers Amsterdam, then toured through the Netherlands as part of Moving Futures Festival.
Released partly on double EP ‘dp[a] + hsh’ at Moving Furniture Records.
Composition and music production for contemporary dance on beach theatres.
Concept:
Duration: 30 minutes.
Special mention
Composition, music production and electronics arrangements of work by Junkie XL for theatre by director Paul Feld.
Description:
Duration: 70 minutes.
Premiered during Festival De Basis at Soesterberg.
Interdisciplinary creation of the performance ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes’. Homesick consists of choreographers Cherish Menzo & Lynn Meijer, stage designer Celina Yavelow and composer Gagi Petrovic leading a group of 14 dancers.
Activities include:
Duration: 30 minutes.
The piece has been presented on open space stages in Parksessies Haarlem and Vondelpark Openluchttheater Amsterdam.
Composition and music production for contemporary dance, integrating new work with existing pieces.
Concept:
Duration: 25 minutes
Performed in Haarlem.
Music for contemporary dance duo by Cherish Menzo & Lynn Meijer, with stage design by Celina Yavelow.
Duration: 15 minutes.
Premied at Frascati, Amsterdam.
Music for contemporary dance by Jolien van Haaster.
Electro-acoustic music that integrates recorded monologues of the dancers regarding feeling crazy.
Duration: 3o minutes.
Concept:
Premiered in Haarlem
Music for Dance Film by Celina Yavelow.
Electronics music based on controlling feedback and noise.
Duration: 15 minutes.
Premiered at the Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam.
Contemporary Dance, Music for Dance Solo by Tim Persent.
Arrangement of tango music by Piazolla for baroque ensemble with electronics. Part of internship at LeineRoebana.
Duration: 7 minutes.
Toured with Holland Dance Festival.
Composition and music production of new music integrated with existing music, for a new choreography by Jolien van Haaster.
Duration: 30 minutes
Premiered at Codarts, Rotterdam.
Short film by Pauline Nijenhuis, for exhibit at Dat Bolwerck.
Duration: 1 minute.
Composition and music production for a podcasts series by European Pavillion Podcast. Guitars, synths and beats.
Duration: 45 minutes
Composition and music production for documentary by Eline F. Hesse and Robin Vogel.
Concept:
Duration: 60 minutes.
Composition, music production and sound editing for video art and documentary by Alejandro Ramirez.
Concept:
Duration: 60 minutes.
Music being used in documentary by Carina Molier (Witfilm), that is nominated film for the IDFA Awards.
Concept:
Featured pieces by Gagi Petrovic:
Composition, music production, sound logo design and sound editing for podcast series.
Duration: 45 minutes.
Composition and music for short documentary by Boris Braak. Guitars and electronics.
Duration: 7 minutes
Composition and music production for short movie by Patrick Carelsz.
Duration: 10 minutes.
Composition and music production for short movie by Patrick Carelsz.
Duration: 3 minutes.
Composition of new tango music and performance (melodica) for short dance film by Victor van Doorn.
Duration: 4 minutes.
Summary of summer research residency at Het Huis Utrecht.
Contemporary circus meets abstract electronic music.
Born from urgency, Lisa Chudalla and Gagi Petrovic met in a united artistic act of protest. As part of the ‘Kapsalon Theater’ demonstration in January 2022, where over 50 Theaters in the Netherlands opened their doors for one day, they were paired together for a one-off show in Het Huis Utrecht to stand against the inconsistent lift of measures that massively disadvantaged the art and culture sector in the Netherlands. They had close to zero time to get acquainted with each other or rehearse together.
The improvisation following surprised not only them but also the theater and its audience. It was impossible to tell apart which artist followed the other, they were in sync. This inspired them to continue researching this special connection and make more performances together, with actual time for preparation.
We envision a multi-sensory experience, where both disciplines merge into an interdependent and immersive experience, a synergetic artistic entity. We aim to move beyond clear distinctions of who follows whom.
Our materials consist visually of acrobatic motion with chains, wheels and lights; aurally of abstract electronic expressionism, manipulations of present site-specific locations and performance sounds (with hints of singer-songwritership). The musical instrument, GEST, is a simple piece of hardware that reads light intensity and then continuously translates that into values between (roughly) 0 and a 1000. These moving digits then in turn feed the software of the instrument which allow for live audio manipulation of prepared recordings.
Vocalist for new audiovisual work by Zeno van den Broek.
“From Voice To Pulse explores the tension between the human and the digital sphere. The film merges detailed imagery that serves as a kind of digital loom, with ever-faster algorithmic percussion and an algorithmic text, written by open-source text generator GPT-2 and delivered by Gagi Petrovic. Artist and composer Zeno van den Broek shares a fresh, intriguing perspective on our interaction with artificial intelligence.”
This work has been presented during IFFR 2023, as finalist in the Ammodo Tiger Short Competition.
Singing bass-baritone.
Members:
Composition and performance in musical duo with cellist Maya Fridman.
C0-created pieces, under the name ‘Constellations’:
These works have been performed in multiple festivals, such as Gaudeamus, Soundsofmusic, and other venues.
Curating of ad hoc ensemble for collective improvisation. Oorsprong Curators Series is an initiative of Raoul van der Weide.
Ensemble:
Composition, production and acting for sound art trail with a narrative on the secret sounds of plants.
Concept
Duration: 3 hours
Performed during Gaudeamus Muziekweek 2014
Acting in performance art by Pedro Matias.
Performed at Rietveld Academy and Museumnacht.
Singing bass-baritone.
Ad hoc guidance on project-based learning, regarding the use of technology for musical purpose. For music artists that are beginning with
Students include:
At the Utrecht School of Arts he guides students in finding their own musical language, while exploring existing musical conventions and understanding fundamental music theory. He mostly teaches in the second and third year of the bachelor, in interactive and project based subjects.
The subjects cover:
Selected as ‘Young Potential’ to participate in research regarding creative decision making. Some of the findings are released under the name ‘Makersmanieren’.
Coordinating the preparatory course of HKU, while offering guidance to the students. This includes: