Vladimir Hirsch

Vladimír Hirsch (born 3 July 1954, Benešov, Czechoslovakia) is a Czech composer and instrumentalist (keyboard instruments). The author of the concept of the so-called "integrated" musical form – combining contemporary classical music with dark-ambient and industrial music, his compositional style is characterized by polymodal architecture and alchemical work with sound, using mainly digital techniques to expand the action potential of the means of expression. Vladimír Hirsch is or was the leader of the avant-garde projects Aghiatrias, Skrol, Zygote, Subpop Squeeze, and more. From 1986 to 1996, he was a member of the experimental post-punk band Der Marabu. Vladimír Hirsch graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at Charles University in Prague and has been practicing medicine with shorter or longer breaks. Vladimír Hirsch was born in Benešov, lived in Ledeč nad Sázavou until he was 18 and then moved to Prague, where he now lives and works. Composing since 1973, he started with small romantic and classical compositions for piano and organ, but very soon abandoned the experiments and devoted himself only to rock and jazz. A long-time member of the Prague-based post-punk group Der Marabu, after its disintegration, he founded the ensemble Skrol (1995) and several other parallel projects like Aghiatrias, Zygote, Subpop Squeeze, Luminar Ax, etc.Without ever abandoning his projects and ensembles, in 1987 the composer began working in parallel on solo production, and around 2002 it became his main program. Emphasizing the use of modern means of expression and the search for specific compositional techniques, he bring together serial, atonal, microtonal, polymodal, and spectral music. Partly inspired by the traditions of 20th-century Slavic classical music, Vladimír Hirsch keeps building hybrid working models in tonal principles, composition, and instrumentation. Using digital techniques for classical orchestras together with a wide range of sound sources, he searches to achieve the alchemical transformation of sounds into a homogeneous, indivisible substance. This principle, called "integrated music" by itself, also represents the metaphysical idea of the creative concept, which consists in the collision and reconciliation of two seemingly opposite spiritual worlds within an individual.

Vladimír Hirsch regularly gives concerts both at home and abroad, including tours in the USA, Germany, Great Britain and Italy. In 2010, an eight-disc set of key recordings was released by the Italian publishing house Ars Benevola Mater entitled "The Assent to Paradoxon". He has also collaborated with foreign artists on different projects like Dawn Carlyle aka Dove Hermosa, Nadya Feir, Cecilia Bjärgö, Igor Vaganov, Alessandro Aru or Kenji Siratori.