Composer Spotlight- Margareta Ferek Petric

Get to Know...Margareta Ferek Petric

Each time I write a composer spotlight for a work in the flute and accompaniment category I’m reminded how strong the entries are each year. Over the last two days, I’ve listened to each of last year’s works and all three (Jean Ahn’s Toys, Margareta Ferek Petric’s Beastie Poetry, and Joseph Hallman’s four pieces) are really intriguing works that I would enjoy playing and I feel this way pretty much every year! Like many of our members, I’ve played many of the winning, honorable mention, and finalist works and have a list of others I want to play in the future! Flutists are spoiled by the wealth of wonderful music being composed!
​
Today, we have the opportunity to learn more about Margareta Ferek Petric composer of Beastie Poetry for flute/piccolo and piano. Beastie Poetry was selected as a finalist in the flute and accompaniment category in 2018. If you listen to Beastie Poetry and read her response to the question “what about new music for flute appeals to you?” I think you’ll come to the same conclusion I did, that Margareta is incredibly successful in exploring the many timbres of the flute without seeming cliché. Margareta organically incorporates extended techniques in a way that is much appreciated.

Margareta recently shared with us some very exciting news, she was recently chosen as the new artistic director of Music Biennale Zagreb, founded in 1961, the festival is dedicated purely to contemporary experimental music. She will be the first woman to serve as artistic director. Congratulations, Margareta on this significant accomplishment!
 
Q&A with Margareta…

What about new music for the flute appeals to you?
Flute offers a bright spectrum of possibilities which I find crucial for composing - it allows one to be subtle and rough, to explore the clichés of classical beauty, but to always be able to muddy and reframe the sound into experimental abstraction. The wide range of the flute family opens a playground for various ideas and the capability of using so many extended techniques uphold these ideas in a very special way.

Who is/are your favorite “new music” composer/s and why?
It is impossible to point out names of personalities and pieces without needing several pages to write them all down. Besides the renowned composers from the contemporary music scene, I discover my favorite ones along the way while visiting concerts and festivals, very often those are now living composer colleagues with refreshing new ideas and strong messages that they express through their music.

Describe your musical background and current activities.
Growing up in Croatia got me the natural privilege to be in a strong connection with the expression of the music of the Eastern Europe and the tradition of the western classical music was very well taught both in music schools back there and also later at the University in Vienna. I suppose these two strong influences always flow through my blood while composing and almost force me to find a middle way between them, but also enable me to switch in-between these worlds. Right now, I am very excited to work on a piece for accordion and ensemble and a chamber opera, which will be a big challenge since I have never written one. Between big commissions I always try to find time to write pieces which are dedicated to musicians whose work I love and respect and who are always supporting me to write new compositions for them. I find this very personal kind of collaboration very fruitful for both sides, especially for promoting contemporary music and us - now living and working composers.

Where/How do you seek for the inspiration for your works?
I cannot imagine my life without being curious about other art forms, science, politics, society, etc. There is always a story in my mind I want to tell, but I have to narrate it with sound. I suppose one can feel privileged in a position as a composer to persistently be able to reveal the current mindset through creative work. So, the impulses that give inspiration can mostly be found in an everyday life - book that you just read, painting that cannot leave your head after visiting the latest exhibition, interesting line from a movie last night, absurd political situation, inspiring talk with a stranger while walking home or simply the need to discover something new in some context outside of musical expression and take on the challenge to express it though notes.

More About Margareta…
Margareta Ferek Petric was born 1982 in Zagreb, Croatia. She studied composition with Ivan Eröd, Chaya Czernowin and Klaus Peter Sattler at The University of Music and performing Arts in Vienna. She was granted scholarships from various institutions and foundations (Home Suisse Foundation, Thyll-Dürr Foundation, Austrian Ministry of Culture, Office of the Austrian federal Chancellor - State Scholarship for Composers, etc.). In 2010, she was invited for a working stay in Casa Zia Lina on Elba by Thyll-Dürr Foundation and in 2011 she received a Theodor Körner Award for an orchestral composition Take 7. Since 2015 she is working as a part of the managing committee of the Austrian Society for Contemporary Music (ÖGZM). In 2016 Croatia was represented by Margareta´s music on 63rd International Rostrum Of Composers. 2017 she became a prize winner of Advancement Award from the city of Vienna. In 2018 Ferek-Petric was declared Artist in Residence of the Carinthian Summer Music Festival, she was awarded with Croatian prizes: Josip Stolcer Slavenski Award and Boris Papandopulo Award (both for All the world´s a stage - as the composition of the year in Croatia) and Prix Annelie de Man 2nd Prize and an Audience Prize in Amsterdam (both for the harpsichord piece Istaratu). Few of the latest works have been recorded on albums published by Decca Records and Croatia Records. Her music is being regularly commissioned and performed by renowned ensembles and instrumentalists, diverse festivals and is being played in radio stations around the world. Margareta´s work is “colorful, ironic and deep – with a strive to create absurd sound images”. She lives and works in Vienna, Austria. Learn more on her website: www.margaretaferekpetric.com

If you Liked Beastie Poetry…
DUO:
Beastie Poetry - for Flute/Piccolo & Piano (2018)
Searching for Spaces - for Bass flute & Pno (2016)
Mad darkness I - for Traverso flute & Harpsichord (2015)

QUARTET
Climate Burn-Out (stress trilogy: part II)
- for flute/alto flute, clarinet, cello & piano (2018)
Fire Walk With(out)me - for Paetzold recorder, flute, harp & harpsichord (2017) (and a second video)

QUINTET
Spukgedichte - for Soprano, Fl/Bass fl., Cl, Vln, Vcl, Text by Richard Schuberth (2016)
Noncerto - for Renaissance/Barock Recorder (optional with flute) & String Quartet
(2013)

ENSEMBLE
Neun Echos - for Sopr., traverso flute, baroque oboe, baroque bassoon, baroque vln,
Violone/G & Organ (2018)
All the world ́ s a stage for Fl, Ob, Cl, BCl, Ten.Sax., Bsn, Hn, Trpt, Tromb, Tuba, 2 Timp,
Perc, Pno, Harp, Strings (1,1,1,1,1) (2017)
dieMacht for Fl, Ob, Cl, BCl, Bsn, Hn, Trpt, Tromb, 2 Timp, Perc, Pno, Strings (1,1,1,1,1)
(2015)
Wiener Schnitzel Uncensored - for Fl/alto fl., Cl, Vln, Vla, Vcl, Pno (2014)

---