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Why do I compose?
Music is a form of artistic expression, and every axpression provokes a dialogue. Interaction with the listener is extremely important for me. Each conversation carried out in an appropriate way rises emotions and gives the participants intellectual and emotional pleasure.
Who, then, is a composer?
A person inviting to discuss, seeking to share with the interlocutor his/her views and cause reflection and conversation with very particular tools. Therefore, I believe a composer is a craftsman, who forms his/her ideas and visions in a certain way, creating a coherent musical expression, the more worthy, the more thouhtfully designed it has been.
Who is the recipient of my music?
I am trying to do my best so that my music was many-layered and reached any one ready to grasp it, no matter how thoroughly they will analyze it. I do wish it to reach both an educated individual, and the one being no professional in the field. A cerefully planned form, using quotes, relating to past epoques, literature and art encourage analysis, plunging into the piece, its structure and content.
What is my ispiration?
Most od all it is art, especially literature, but also my professional activities– educational, theatrical, performing in general. The development of music is continuous and uninterrupted, that is why acheivements of the creators of the past are crutial to me and that is where I draw conclusions for my work.These, as well as the reflection on the sorrounding reality are important aspects of my music.
Who do I take from?
Those, obviously, who had achieved in music what I seek to achieve – who initiated the dialogue with me and caused me to reflect.
for soloists, actors, dancers, choir and orchestra
date of creating
2018
Δημήτηρ is a piece of bordering genres, telling a story of the mythical goddess of fertility and harvest. Its idea is to go back to the roots of European culture and to contrast it with the the present which constitutes our reality – showing the timelessness of the myth and its unsettling validity in the XXI c. The idea, trensferred into music ground, makes the listener move across time again and again – between the ancient world of Greek gods and our modern reality.
for string quartet
date of creating
2020
Providence Suite is a kind of musical story inspired by the works of Howard Philips Lovecraft. The piece is divided into several parts, which titles should be some kind of guidance for a listener, however, a dextrous connoisseur of Lovecrafts’ works will find exact references to particular motives created by the “Loner from Providence”
for flute quartet
date of creating
2021
The inspiration for the composition was Irish mythology, and in particular the frequent symbolism of the number four. The titular Dara Knot is a typical Celtic knot symbolizing an oak tree, representing the four elements; its roots were depicted as a knot, without beginning or end – a symbol of the uninterrupted interpenetration of all the elements that bind the universe together. In mythology, four artifacts brought by the first inhabitants of Ireland were associated with the four elements. Each part of the piece refers to one of these treasures, the element assigned to it, and the Irish myth associated with it.
Bóg mnie opuścił (God has left me)
for tenor solo with accompanying piano
date of creating
2019
The starting point for composing the piece was modern view on a song as a form, being a musical interpretation of poetry. The main forming element is the text itself – a titleless poem by Bolesław Leśmian – as well as its prosodia, narration and meaning. The initiating verse of the text was used as a returning, not-answered question – a moment of reflection over the cruel reality in which the lyrical ego found himself, bringing back tragic events and echos of emotions acompanying them. The work is, however, not just a musical illustration of Leśmian’s poem, but also exposes a drama shown by the poet in particular lines. Most of all, it provokes thinking over the returning incipit, leaving the interpretation of the question to the listener.
for female choir a cappella
date of creating
2017
The starting point when creating this work were two coexisting factors. The first of them is an attempt to relate to musical roots of medieval sequence, both in terms of musical language and form (though not in a direct and straightforward way). Due to the structure, you can define the piece as neo-reneissance, reagarding its polyphony and strict division into subsequent parts, the result of its strophic structure. Considering its unusually emotional and „human” character of the words, I decided to introduce a macro-form dialogue between the choir and solo voices, which unite the form of the piece and give it a contemplating, even intimate feel. This semantic and expressive layer of text constituted the other element, which gave the work its final shape.
for string quartet
date of creating
2015
Square constitutes an attempt to use a geometric shape as a form of te work. The central idea is transferring a dimentional object into a basic musical aspect which is developing with time. Because of this – to initiate – a title square was designed, consisting of three parts: A, B,and C, combined in different ways, in three rows, so that part C is the figure’s diagonal. The above mentioned parts are contrasting, independent music ideas, each featuring its inner logic of sequence, in spite of being devided with the remaining ones.
The piece had its world premiere during 27. Festiwal Kompozytorów Krakowskich (Festival of Cracow’s Composers).
for mixed choir a cappella
date of creating
2019
Missa Descendens is a cycle of constant parts of the mass (ordo missae), composed as in the old elaborations of ordinarium missae, enabling performing them during mass liturgy. The leitmotiv is the title decending, however, not in a literal but metaphorical sense – reflecting the subjective lookout on faith issues, ot the ethos of religious music. The musical language, like in my remaining religious pieces, is slightly simplified, and its crudeness is a reference to Reneissance choral music.
date of creating
2017
From the description the the show:
„The strenght of the myth is lust (thirst). The reason why heroes, tytans and men caused the Gods’ wrath. Brought war or plaque onto their home town or suffered exemplary neverending torment.
What kind of punishment does the lust deserve? Rolling up the rock, which slips down at the very last moment? Everlasting holding up the globe? Impossibly small but impenetrable distance from your fingertips to the life-saving food? Or making others suffer for your sin?
Layos, visiting the town of Pisa, falls in love with Crysops – King Pelops’s son. The boy was beautiful. The prud layos kidnaps the boy, then imprisons and rapes him in the desert – he gives in to the forbidden lust. Broken Crysops commits a suicide. A despering father casts a curse on Layos: wishing him to get killed by his own son.
The wheels of the myth start turning – the spheres of lust unwillingly start working. The Thebes fall apart like blocks under the weight of the father’s sin. Oedipus is cast away out into the world which he doesn’d understand. The people, bloodthirsty and longing for satisfaction demant for the mistery to be resolved. Does Iocaste know anything? Does she want to remember? Tresias, the warden of the myth, half-god, bmanand woman in one, makes sure that the destiny is fulfilled. How to put those blocks back together? The town must overcome the fate that hangs over it. It demands sacrifice.” — Piotr Urbanowicz
date of creating
2017
From the spectacle’s description:
„The Thing about Creating the Artist” is a musial tale, in which the material and spiritual issues fight over a child. Each of them wants to take over a young man for its cause and purpose. As a result, only the right balancing of both spiritual and material needs allows the young artist’s personality to develop. In the play, the parents of the child fight their own weaknesses and the ghosts of the long forgotten ideals and love that used to bind them toghether. The visit of two extrordinary – fairy-tale – characters the Prestige and the Arcanus, totally changes the family’s life, making them go through an ordeal, and brigning about a happy ending.”
Contact:
E-mail: stanislaw.rzepiela@gmail.com
Stanisław Rzepiela – composer, conductor, arranger, and educator. Author of autonomous music (symphonic, chamber, vocal,
and vocal-instrumental) as well as applied music (theatre and film), presented at numerous festivals in Poland and abroad. Winner of many awards, including: First Prize at the 5th Bruno Maderna International Composers’ Competition in Lviv (2021), Second Prize at the Patri Patriae International Composers’ Competition (2014, 2018), the Golden Diploma at the 2nd “Musical Eagles” International Competition for outstanding artistic achievement in composition (2022), and an honorable mention at the 3rd Adam Kopyciński National Competition for Conducting Students (2020). In 2017, he received the Creative Scholarship of the City of Kraków.
He regularly collaborates with the Kraków Philharmonic. Since 2021, he has been associated with the Polish Radio Choir – Lusławice, initially as
a vocalist and guest conductor, and currently as assistant to the artistic director. He also conducts the Auxilium Chamber Choir and the SmOK AGH Orchestra.
A violinist by education, and a pianist and vocalist by calling. For nearly 20 years, he collaborated with Kraków’s Loch Camelot Theatre as
a composer, instrumentalist, and performer. He shares his professional experience through teaching theoretical subjects and conducting the orchestra at the W. Żeleński State Secondary Music School in Kraków. He graduated with honors from the Academy of Music in Kraków, majoring in composition and conducting.