Anna Dobrucka (*1989) born in Cieszyn, Poland, currently based in Venice, is a composer, pianist, painter and producer.
She began her piano studies at the age of 5, completing 12 years of full time Music School in Poland specialising in piano performance and Dalcroze method of teaching. Then, she continued music studies at the University of Silesia in Poland and on a scholarship at the Conservatorio Superior in Valencia, Spain. She also holds a Master’s degree in Political Science, which allowed her to work closely with the president of the Catalan parliament in Barcelona in 2014 and do research on the transatlantic relations in the Azores Islands in 2015.
Anna continued to raise her qualifications in the Dalcroze method at the Institut Dalcroze at the Haute École de Musique in Geneva, Switzerland in 2020. She studied composition with Thomas Reiner in Melbourne, Australia and with Riccardo Vaglini at the Venice Conservatory of Music in Italy graduating with highest marks and honours. She attended masterclasses and lectures by Achim Christian Bornhöft, Yasuko Yamaguchi, Aleksander Lasoń, Stefan Hakenberg, Nicola Sani, Gabriele Manca, Giacomo Manzoni, Mauro Lanza, Henrik Hellstenius, Fabien Lévy, Helena Tulve and Francesco Filidei.
Anna participates in projects that include 3D art installations (XIV Florence Biennale), dance choreograpy, theatre (Teatro La Fenice) and film. She writes for soloists and ensembles (Azione Improvvisa), gives concerts of piano improvisation, usually connected with video or text projections. She takes part in composer residencies, international projects (Biennale Musica, Venezia) and her music is performed internationally.
Her four-year sojourn in Australia exposed her to the unique sounds of traditional instruments from Japan, China and Bali, inspiring her to study their distinctive notation and collaborate with local performers. After moving to Venice, she explores the sonic possibilities of ancient instruments such as the theorbo, antique organ and viola da gamba, as well as the use of the electric guitar in the setting of classical music. Anna believes that altering the sounds of instruments and mixing musical traditions are infinite thus giving an opportunity for the never-ending exploration. Currently she is carrying out a research on the process of musical recomposition.
SELECTED WORKS
MARCO POLO (2024)
OPERA in III ACTS
for orchestra, vocal octet, mass choir and 5 soloists
Commissioned by the Teatro La Fenice, Venezia
2024 November – Shanghai, China
2024 April – Venice, Italy
your face dissolving in pastel colours (2024)
for mixed choir, site specific
A site-specific composition intended for a mixed mass choir (100 people) to be sung from the windows and balconies of the Palazzo Pisani in Venice (The Conservatory of Venice).
The single melodic line serves as the basis for this composition, created according to the specific canon-resembling indications. The female voices will make the sound travel in space – moving from one window to another – a circulating sound, while the basses and tenors will perform (from a fixed spot on the balcony) the main line in lower octaves in double and quadruple duration, sometimes in retrograde technique.
The concept for the lyrics was inspired by circular poetry, where the text can be repeated indefinitely because the ending leads back to the beginning. The singers start by whispering the lyrics in a crescendo until the basses and tenors join in. Then, the sound of the female voices begins to travel through the space as they perform the main melodic line.
Premiere: 21 June 2024
SOLSTICE (2024)
for flute/piccolo, baritone saxophone,
bassoon, baritone voice, vibraphone, violin, piano.
Summer Solstice – celebration of the moment when astronomical summer begins and the Sun perpendicularly illuminates the Tropic of Cancer. The shortest night of the year was devoted to wild parties and the customs and rituals celebrated at this time were intended to ensure health and fertility. The celebration peculiar to the Slavic peoples is called Noc Kupały. “The night of Kupala” also opens the ‘bathing season’. It was believed that before that feast, water men and women (wodniki, wodnice), drowners and water demons of all kinds lurked in rivers, streams and lakes to lure the thirsty people into summer. Only after the shortest night of the year were all bathers safe from the temptations of impure forces. The celebration of the summer solstice could not be eradicated from popular rituals and sensibilities, so the Catholic church tried to assimilate the feast, which was after all completely pagan, into Christian rituals. This is how the tradition of celebrating the eve of the liturgical memory of St John the Baptist, also commonly known as Midsummer’s Eve, came about.
DUALITY in Solstice (2024)
The composition, similarly, presents an interpenetration of “pagan” nature (the character of the violin part – ‘fiddle like’, with fifths and chords, characteristic of Slavic folk music, the use of low register instruments and prepared piano: muted, percussive sounds, freedom of interpretation – improvised parts, alternation between measured and unmeasured parts) and “Christian” themes (chords reminiscent of the plagal cadences characteristic of church music, the parts with a more rigorous character and specific metrics and tempo, the use of the vibraphone to create a celestial sound impression, baritone voice treated as an instrument !).
Commissioned by Francesco Pavan for the Venice Art Night 2024
Film by Brazilian filmmaker Nicolas Candido created to illustrate the composition Lumière (2019) for piano solo. Geneva, Switzerland, 2021
Best Artistic Concept Award at the 9º Super OFF – Festival Internacional de Cinema Super 8 in São Paulo
Official Selection at the Super 8 International Film Festival in Curitiba 17th edition
RELEASES
In Fuga
The highest mountain conceals a story, that wind unfolds discreetly
ART INSTALLATIONS
ORIGINS
The unbearable lightness
Architecture of inner space
VIDEO
Perfect Solitude by Yulia Velems
COLLABORATIONS
Piano +
The Whale Project
2022 Biennale Musica - Venice, Italy
THE WIND
Brandon Lee - koto
