Is searching for parallel universes, space exploration or universe theory, a matter reserved only for physicists, mathematicians and astronauts? Actually, such a reservation seems natural – after all, we live in a time of specialization. However, let's note, this was not always the case.
Let's take, for example, the seven liberal arts – a system of general and universal teaching that was shaped in antiquity, and later entered the canon of education in the Middle Ages. It assumed a trivium division, which was the required preparation for the quadrivium. Trivium included grammar, rhetoric and dialect. Quadrivium – music, arithmetic, geometry and astronomy. The individual fields were closely related. The basis of arithmetic is numbers, geometry is numbers in a space, music is numbers in time, astronomy is finally numbers in both time and space. So music can add another brick into the temple of knowledge ...
Such a goal seems to inspire the latest project by Katarzyna Borek "Space in Between". A classically trained pianist with an experience lined with laurels in piano competitions, has for years been turning to the marriage of a classical piano (or Rhodes piano) and electronic sounds. The canvas for her electronic processing is the music of well-known artists such as Pärt, Cage, Rodrigo and de Falla, and her main purpose is to ask about the existence of another dimension of space: "Through music I discover the cosmos, and the cosmos presents music to me. The album »Space in Between« is my personal concept for which I have chosen my favorite compositions by world-famous composers, presenting them in a mantric and minimalist style. They are connected with an ambient spatial character. I have also built some of my own neoclassical arrangements for two instruments – Rhodes and piano. The album closes the ambient synthesizer impression on the hypothetical planet X ".
Such a rich musical tradition in electronic processing plus questions about space... with no reservations.
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Mikołaj Rykowski PhD
Musicologist and clarinetist, doctorate, and associate at the Department Music Theory at the Paderewski Academy of Music in Poznań. Author of a book and numerous articles devoted to the phenomenon of Harmoniemusik – the 18th-century practice of brass bands. Co-author of the scripts "Speaking concerts" and author of the spoken introductions to philharmonic concerts in Szczecin, Poznań, Bydgoszcz and Łódź.
