Season 6 Eps.15: The Sound of Perseus feat. Composer & Conductor, Michael Ostrzyga

Welcome to another episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song.

This season, we are exploring creativity and connection, highlighting artists who are rethinking what it means to create, perform, and live as musicians today. Today's guest is Michael Ostriga, composer, conductor, and music director at the University of Cologne. His work spans choral music, orchestral writing, and editorial scholarship, but in this episode, we focus on his piano writing, especially his recent album Perseus. This is not an album you just follow from beginning to end. It's something you spend time with. It moves through structure, memory, and sound, sometimes very precise, sometimes very open, almost suspended. And what I found especially compelling is that behind all of that is something very human. During the recording of this album, Michael went through a deeply personal moment in his life. And some of the music we hear actually comes out of that experience. So, in this conversation, we talk about how music begins, whether from structure, from memory, or from something we can't quite explain. We also talk about expanding the piano, writing for different kinds of performers, and what it means to stay connected to tradition while still creating something new. Thank you as always for being here and for supporting The Piano Pod. Here is Season 6, Episode 15 with Michael Ostrega. Please enjoy the show.

You are listening to The Piano Pod, where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry about how they are bringing the piano into the future and thriving in a complex, ever-evolving world. Michael, welcome to The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song with Yukimi Song. It's a pleasure to have you with us today. Thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, and before we get— begin, may I ask where you are joining from today?

I'm in Germany, in Cologne. I'm based in Cologne and also in Munich, but now I'm in Cologne in my home.

Oh, wonderful. So today we're going to focus primarily on your piano writing, especially your recent solo album Perseus and your ongoing Primes cycle. Am I correct saying?

Primes, yes.

Primes, yes. And then while still acknowledging the broader artistic world that surrounds it. So your work spans composition, conducting, editorial scholarship, choral music, and your role as a music director at University of Cologne. And all these threads inevitably shape the way you think about sound and structure and the piano itself, I'm sure. So with that in mind, I would love to begin with this first question. With all that you do, what is the core artistic impulse or purpose or mission that connects everything you do?

That's an interesting question. I think, you know, there's this saying, I think it's attributed to Arnold Schoenberg, which is Kunst kommt nicht von Können, aber von Müssen. So it's art is not derived from to be able to do something or to, to to, uh, yeah, to can literally, but it's derived from to have to do something so that you are, uh, actually you must do something. And, um, I, from early age on, music was, was sort of my refuge, my, my sanctuary, my very own thing. Um, and later it became much more a shared thing But what I kept, I think, is the sense of discovery or exploration and also a sense of play. I think for us musicians, that's a very important aspect. We have to make sure that we don't lose this aspect of playing and this sort of very naive open-mindedness to explore things we do not know. Yet. And I think that's, that's one of my core motivations. And, um, what you— what's interesting maybe is that all these roles I play, um, like conducting, like composing, like doing editorial work, you know, sometimes, um, these roles are interfering with each other. So when I'm more in a conductor's mindset, I am not a good composer. And when I'm in a composer mindset, I'm not a good conductor because it's different thinking. Yeah, you know, when you conduct, you do like, um, very, very split-second decisions. You do a lot of, uh, many things simultaneously in your head. So you, you guide the music, but in the same time you do run diagnostics. What's going on? How can I— what Why are they doing it like this and not like that? What can I say and do to bring the vision I want to realize with the music? And so it's a lot of things are going on. And then when you cut off, you have to be very clear and very short. In very short time, you say, we do this and that, and then it goes on. So there's a flow of this rehearsal and in a concert as well, of course. And that's very a very psychologically different situation compared to composing. When I compose, I can like, like think about two notes half an hour and nothing happens. And I need it also. So my conductor's mind is too quick for my composer's mind and vice versa.

Wow.

So then when you begin a new work as a composer, Where does it truly begin? Is it, you know, your music engages with natural, technological, astronomical, historical, mythological ideas, and but in the moment of creation, you know, when the idea begins to form, is it comes with an image or concept or sound itself?

That's different. And I don't know really. Sometimes it's just, just a memory. I have a memory like when I visited a certain place or when I experienced something like it could be in nature that I, that I visit a very beautiful, but also a very inspiring place. And this sometimes is looming in the back of my mind for years, and then there's a situation which makes this pop up again, and then I feel the need to translate this into a piece of music. It also can be like with my Cycles Primes, which is about numbers. It also could be something like constructions or architectural ideas you could do, like configurations, figure out configurations of certain structures. And then this intrigues me, and then I try to translate it. Often it's— usually I have much more ideas than I have time to deal with them.

That makes sense. Sure. Wow, it actually makes sense because I've been listening to your piano album, the recently released album Perseus. And so there was a portion of journey you mentioned, you know, and places and so on, and also different inspirations. So let's talk about Perseus, right? So I, first of all, I just wanted to say thank you. When you you know, emailed me for the first time and you introduced me to your album and it just opened my ears, opened my eyes. It's like, wow, piano can do this? You know, I thought, you know, we've heard it all, we've, you know, explored it all, but even then there's more to it. And it's just an amazing instrument, but also amazing album. So for those who are listening to this episode. This is truly a must-listen album, and the link in the show notes. But the title Perseus, uh, where does that come from? It's the last track of the album, right?

Yeah, thank you, Yukimi, for, for, uh, saying this about my music. I feel very honored, and thank you very much. I, I'm grateful that you like it. And it's, it happened that the pianist who plays on the, on the album at one occasion told me, because we were recording on the Bösendorfer Imperial, which has the low keys, the additional low keys, he actually said to me, you need to write about Perseus. And I said, what are you talking about? And he said, yeah, you know, there's— I have seen this in a TV show that they actually recorded sounds from a black hole in the Perseus galaxy cluster. So it's a galaxy cluster somewhere out there. And in the center of this galaxy cluster, there's a black hole. And they recorded sounds which can be heard there because there's gas in the galaxy. So, you know, this tagline, in space, nobody hears your scream from the movie Alien. But actually, in this galaxy, you can hear something because there's gas everywhere. And so they recorded this. And you actually is somewhere in the internet, you can easily find it. They actually had to manipulate the recording and put it like 50 octaves higher so that you actually can even hear it because it's so low we can't hear it. So it says something like 50 octaves higher and then it's very, very low and very disturbing in a way. And I listened to that, and then I thought, yes, I could, I could create a sort of a travelogue going to that galaxy in a way, and, and in my music translate it in a, in an actually very, formally speaking, in a very traditional way, because I have I have, of course, I have these modern effects like playing inside of The Piano Pod. I devised that. But then I also have something like a recitative part in it where I felt this is like in an oratorio or opera where we have actually like a scene going on which is happening right there and where the black hole is described or something like that. Of course, it's very very— there are no words describing it or explaining it. It's not explicitly said. But that was my idea, to have sort of these traditional Western ideas of our music, how we illustrate things in our nature, like Haydn's The Creation or pieces later on, programmmusik, you know, this like Beethoven's Sixth Symphony. So there's sort of this idea of illustrating what we see there in musical terms.

Let's dive into Perseus Inside. So take us through the pieces. So first piece is Personare. So how you pronounce? Yeah, it's so meditative. Yeah.

Um, yeah, Personare, um, that's actually a piece written in space notation, so there's no real rhythms. It's just like relatively notated. Every performer who plays this will have to come up with his or her own vision to realize it, because he needs to— because of the space notation, he needs to find his or her own approach. And so it's different all the time. It's also different when you play it next week or in 4 weeks, because this all influences it. And that's what I find, yeah, particularly interesting also because it explores the inner world, the most inner world of yourself. And that's why it's in the beginning of album. It was sort of like starting within, in your own, in your own heart or your own soul, in your own being. And then from, from there it goes out and explores, um, the outer world.

All right, you mentioned, so the notation is, what do you say, it's space, space notation?

Yeah, that's notation, right? Yeah, that's when you don't use real bar lines and rhythmic precise designations, but you just use like on the 5-line system, you use of course pitches and notes, but the space between the notes is informative when the next note will come. And also I use like very small notes, smaller notes and bigger notes. And also I used grace notes. That was the only thing I also added grace notes as very fleeing, like very short, elusive tonal events.

So it really depends on that. Like you said, the day depends on the person who plays. How you interpret the space or the time is different, right?

Right. Yeah. So it could be very long, a long piece. It could be very short. And also this has the sense of play again then, because you need to like, like play or discover the material and discover what your own mood and mindset is at the moment.

Wow. Interesting. Wow. You can sort of tell what kind of personality this person has too, right? Yeah.

It's like a Rorschach test.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, wonderful. So then followed by two pieces of primes from Primes. So Primes 5 and 7.

Yeah, it's, you know, primes of course, like 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, and so forth. Like these numbers. What you mentioned about 5 is correct. In this case, I used a pattern of 5 notes. And I actually have had that pattern go through different bars. So the bar is different than the pattern, the length of the pattern. And also, like, that's a minimal music conception, actually. I changed, or I put on this pattern of 5 notes, I put different patterns on it or below it, which have like 3 notes or 4 notes. And this changes all the time, but the 5-note pattern is present all the time. So it's like the same but different. These numbers are very inspirational for me because it's— of course, there are a lot of structural ideas behind that, how you can combine these things, but also they have like you know, like cultural dimensions, or also in our, in our collective consciousness, there's something like dance going on with, or, or patterns in nature, like inhale, exhale, or the, um, the cosmic things like the planets going in certain intervals. And that is something which already Bach was inspired by and was used. And you know, also Bach for example, has this numerals in his pieces sometimes that is like 14 numbers because that is his name. And so this sort of cultural implications also, that's something I was inspired by very much.

Interesting. And then, so then tell me about the Prime 7.

So first, it's 7 parts. The piece is in 7 parts, and you hear that very, very clearly. And secondly, there is very often this 7th interval. And of course, on a piano, we can only play like 4 notes in 7th. You know what I mean? Because I think even Rachmaninoff couldn't play, or Horowitz couldn't play more than a fifth one because it's just so, so stretched out. But, um, then I, I thought, no, I want to have actually all sevenths on the entire keyboard. And I made this possible with grace notes so that the pianist has, has a grace note at the beginning and then switches to a higher chord, in a way a seventh chord. And, um, that was interesting also psychologically. That's something I'm interested in, um, that the pianist then needs to come up with a solution ergonomically how to do that in a very soft dynamic and in a very soft manner, because I specified it to be like pianissimo and very slow and very— yeah, the atmosphere is like awake, an awakening in the beginning. And so You know, this movement has to be very quick, but at the same time it has to be quick because actually I wanted to appear at the very same time all these notes, but you can't play them at the same time and he has to move very quick, but the expression of it should be that it's very calm. And this is sort of a contradicting process going on because I wanted it to be translated as a very, very calm movement, but it has to be very quick, actually.

That is something. Well, just mind-blowing. I actually have to see this, you know, score again and then, you know, listen to what you said again. But now, before we go any further, I know that you're developing your solo piano cycle Primes, right?

Yeah, that's true. I've started with 5 and 7 because that was just the first things which took off in my mind. And, um, in the beginning I didn't know I wanted to do the other ones too. And then, then it became quite quickly, uh, clear to me that I wanted to have a set of pieces. And also that is the prime, like, like 5 or 7 movements, of course. But the particular one, like in 5, The Five, is much more present, of course. And, you know, there's, yeah, what I hinted at, there's then this, there's a lot of things you can do with the number, like in Seven also, there's a section where I use scales because a scale has 7 notes. So I use scales, but I use different scales all the time. And then I jump to another octave to a note which was not in that scale. Present in that scale. And then I could start another scale from there, and then again I could jump to another note in another octave, to a note which was not present in the previous. So it's like a serial way of composing, but with tonal materials and not with, um, atonal, with, um, like dodecaphonic, uh, material, but with tonal material. And, and that was You know, I'm very interested in recombining tonal material or traditional material in ways which are new. You know what I mean? And the numbers are sort of like a jump-off point to find a lot of structural ideas. And then also, yeah, what I said is the, you know, the cultural dimension or the What I added, it's just not about the numbers because that would be boring, wouldn't it, when you just have the numbers. But I also tried to encapsulate a certain mood with every of these movements. So the 5 movement is sort of like a computer playing around with figurations very quickly, or like a mosaic of lights. Appearing and repeating in certain ways. So it's sort of like an imagery which is present, and you could probably easily translate this to like a movie where something like this is happening, like flashing lights going on. And 7 then is completely different. It's more like a very sinister mood, you know, like the Seven Sins. Or like, yeah, I don't know if it's only a European tradition, but the 7 is sort of like the number of bad luck. And yeah, we say, for example, we say when you are married, the 7th year is the Das verflixte 7. Jahr. So it's the wicked 7th year. Or the, you know, yeah. And, and so I used it sort of like a diabolic music also in that very violent also in some, some moments.

How interesting. So you're using number not only the structural purposes, but also like putting sort of like, I don't know, different elements to it, like, right, superstitious.

And, you know, some things are obvious, like 3 has, of course, of course, the Trinity, you know, in the early music, the 3, the tempus perfectum was like the division in 3. And so there's a lot of cultural implications already coming with a number, and I can allude to it and change it a bit or follow it. And that's what interests me very, very much.

Thank you for sharing that. So let's get back into the Perseus again. So we were at, uh, just finished talking about Prime. So that's track number 3. So from track number 4 and on, uh, there's a series of Nordsee— how do you say— Tagebuch?

Yes, it's diary in English. Yes.

Diary. Yeah. And then, so it's a North Sea journal or diary in English. Yeah. So tell us about these compositions.

Yeah. So I spent a lot of time on vacations actually at North Shore Islands. You know, we have these islands in the North Sea. And they are sort of like microcosmic places. Literally, they are islands, very small islands. And also like of the communities, also a microcosmos. And the nature there is quite unique for Germany because of course there's the very rough sea. The North Sea is quite a very, yeah, very interesting sea also because it's the difference between the high tide and low tide is very, is a big difference. Sort of like in Canada, you know, on the Canadian coast also there are some regions where there's a big difference between the tides. And yeah, there are certain certain things I discovered there or experienced there, which just never left me in my memory. And then I thought of putting them to music in a very aphoristic way. Maybe here to give one example, there's this piece called Windflüchter, These Windflüchter are plants or like trees which are exposed to the wind all the time. And for that reason, they grow in a certain direction because the wind is coming all the time from a certain direction. And so they lean to this direction and there's then usually a group of trees somewhere which are leaning to one direction. And I, in this, this case, I translated this into a music which was also leaning all the time upward, and on the keyboard to the right. So, so to say, the wind comes from the left of the player and it moves to the right. And, um, and I use different planes of the same rising little gesture and in different tempos. And so it's very simple and it's just 1 minute long, I think. And what, what is interesting here for me too is that of course it's also a metaphor for, for human experiences or for human behavior or for human development. Because when we are born, we are also exposed to a lot of wind coming from the same side, um, and maybe differently than, than you or me, but we are exposed to certain things constantly, and this shapes our leaning into a certain direction. And that's what, yeah, what inspires— what inspired me here also. And so you can, in all these pieces, find, find these these inspirations and how they are translated to the piano, but also see like metaphors for our human experiences. We all share also as, yeah, as mankind, because I believe very much that we have a, that we have a collective. That's of course, that's a common concept. We know this. There is a collective memory, collective consciousness, subconsciousness. And I believe that music is sort of the language of that. And it harkens back to the days when music was not known as music, but as everyday life, you know. As far as I know, there are still cultures on Earth where civilizations couldn't interfere so far, and they have not a word for music. They have just a word or more than one word for song or for dance or for morning prayer. And that implies everything, music, dancing, and sharing and community. And you know, this sense of, yeah, this sense of that music strikes something in us in our inner collective memory. That's something I believe very much in.

Now then, the album followed by the piece called "Walks," then followed by "Suite for Prepared Piano." I mean, I'm sorry, I can't pronounce, quite pronounce the language, but it's correct, right? Yes. Yeah, it's correct. And then followed by "Far Side of the Moon" and then "Air's Sterné, right?

Yeah, that's the first.

First, uh-huh. Yeah, so all these titles are beautiful. And, uh, Impulsar, Toccata for Piano, that, that must be really difficult to play.

Oh yeah, it is, it is.

I can't play it. It's an incredible piece. And then ending on the Perseus. So can you tell us briefly about all these amazing pieces?

Yeah, sure. You know, Walks is just a very short contemplative piece. And the Suite for Prepared Piano, that's one of my earliest pieces, actually. And, you know, the pianist playing on the, on the album, Christoph Schnackertz, it was his idea that in the album sequence of pieces, the suite would be like the turning point. Or the frontier, or the pivot where you go from Earth into space. And so everything we hear before that is experiences on here in our earthly surroundings, and then after it, it deals with heavenly phenomena. And the suite is, yeah, it's for prepared piano. Is of course, you think of John Cage when you hear this. But I was also thinking of Bartók and also Debussy in a way, and of organs, because on an organ you have— you can play on different keyboards at the same time. And sometimes I use the preparation to have like an additional keyboard with a special sound going on. On another plane. Yeah. And also there's in the suite, there's a quote of a fugue by Bach in the slow movement. But actually, you know, because it's prepared piano and also Perseus, I was inspired by this in these two pieces by George Crumb. You certainly know him, Yukimi Song. I, I met George Crumb personally in Italy.

You mentioned—

yeah, and that was, that was, uh, fantastic to, to meet him. And I was— I, I am very haunted by the music of George Crumb. Um, it's, it's something like which follows you when you have— it pops up in my mind sometimes because it's such a special music.

I—

it's, it's so unique. So And I actually, it's actually my quote of Bach is actually a quote of Crumb quoting Bach.

Wow. Lots of name dropping. Yeah.

So there's, there's even more like an interreferential or, or super referential plane to this. And, um, yeah, that's in, in, in the suite.

Are these the only ones that are sort of quote unquote prepared piano?

Yeah, this is the only one prepared. I never did this again also. I don't know why. I, yeah, I don't know why. I did write something for detuned pianos, like two pianos which are a quarter tone apart, which is very interesting because you can write something like glissando in a way because you hear it like glissando. The mind, uh, uh, like, like a mind completes a circle when it's incomplete. The mind, when you hear like a quarter-tone, uh, scale, you hear it almost like a glissando. That's interesting.

It is interesting.

Wow.

This is like a completely different language. Like really, totally like you, you, your mind works like an engineer.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And the other movements, uh, following then Far Side of the Moon is just, it's, it's also inspired by Bach. Because it alludes to a certain piece by Bach for organ, one of the trio sonata movements I played as a young teenager. Then is Erste Sterne, the next one. Erste Sterne is indeed a very special memory of a certain situation I had. I still have very vividly in my memory. Yeah, and then it's Impulsa, which is like a play on— the title is a play on words, uh, like pulsar, these very fast rotating objects in the sky, and impulse, uh, an impulse, an impulse, and also pulse, pulses in there. So it's a play on word. And then there's Perseus, the last one, where I also, um, have the pianist play inside of the piano. That's of course something which, uh, owns a lot to George Crumb because he did that so beautifully so often.

That's right. Wow. Well, thank you for showing us your piece. And, um, oh, this— is this album available on Spotify and Amazon Music and iTunes and so on?

Yeah, it is, it is. You— there's also a CD out there with the with a beautiful booklet and a lot of text in there about the pieces. So it's a lot of beautiful artwork also, but you can listen to it on streaming services.

Yes. But if you want to actually purchase a copy of the CD, where is it available? On Amazon, or should I— should we visit your website?

Oh, it's not on my website. You can, you can, I think it's on Amazon, I'm pretty sure, but you can also just browse the website of the label. It's Spektral. I have a booklet here. Spektral.

Oh, beautiful. Yes.

This is, yeah, you know, this is a picture of the Perseus, a part of the Perseus galaxy. Yeah.

Oh, wow.

Okay, right. And on the website you can, you can purchase it there, for example, but I'm sure that it's on Amazon as well and then also available from other retailers.

You know, as much as I love discussing concepts and, you know, compositional ideas, but this season of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song is centered on creativity and connection, and for me, music is always most powerful when we understand the human moment behind it. So I'd love to shift our lens now to something more personal in the recording process. So you mentioned that in the guest form, you know, during the recording period for Perseus, an unexpected technical incident forced rescheduling. On top of that, you had some personal family issues that you were dealing with at the same time. So if you don't mind sharing the story.

Yeah, sure. So we had, on the second day of recording, I got a call from the tuner, the guy tuning the piano, and he said to me that the low C string snapped when he tuned the piano. And one of the pieces we wanted to record on that day was my Toccata de Impulsar piece, and it's full of the C. There's a lot of these exactly this note in it. So we had to reschedule then because we couldn't— yeah, we— and, and then the next— actually, it turns out in the end that the next recording day everyone was available: the pianist, the sound, sound guys, and me, and the hall also. The instrument was then 4 weeks later or 5 weeks later, I think, and On the very same day, because then I had off the day, I decided to visit my father with my kids, with two of my kids. And I tried to reach my father that day and I couldn't reach him. And he also didn't text me back and that was unusual. And I tried to reach him. And yeah, what was strange then that his phone was like switched off, but then again, it was turned, was switched on later because I could get through, but he didn't take the call. And then it was off again. It was on again. So I thought it should be okay because when he has the phone on and off, he's obviously just there. He's moving somewhere and, or he turned it on and off again. So he's okay. But it turns out that later that day, so in the evening already, I started to call the hospitals and also the police and the emergency where you can place an emergency call, etc. So I called there and when I had the second hospital on the phone, they said to me, yes, your father is here. And then I thought, okay, he's there, he's okay, but he's there because he will take the phone, the call now from his room. But then there was a nurse coming in the line and she said to me that my father had a heart attack. Oh my goodness. Yeah, and had to be reanimated for almost half an hour.

That's terrible.

It is, it is. And you know, then it was a weird serial call because she just listed all what happened like you would do to another doctor or something. It was like a report, very, very rational report of what was going on. And then the doctor took the phone and he even explained to me things I didn't understand in like medical terms. And I was like completely overwhelmed, of course, and didn't know what to do. And the next day I, I, um, I drove to the hospital and then I was actually every day there. He was in, in a coma. Um, they had him, they, but not an artificial coma, you know, they, it was not that he, they had let him sleep because he needed to like to heal, his lungs needed to heal and his heart and everything. And so it was like he was really on the verge of fading. It was really like very, very critical. But in the end, like he was in a coma for 3 weeks, I believe. And I was like sitting there and also playing music for him all the time. Of course not myself, but on an, uh, on an MP3 player or something. I was playing music, and, um, in the end he came back. And, um, yeah, I was in, in that time— that's maybe weird, but in that time I actually composed two pieces which are now on the album, uh, I— and, and weren't even, uh, meant to be on the album because they didn't exist at all. So for the original recording session we planned, these pieces weren't there. And, you know, somehow in dealing with the tragedy, I was somehow drawn to write music, sort of like an escape from being— yeah, facing all these all these things which I didn't know will happen or won't happen. So if I say, would I have to say goodbye to him and never speak a word to him again, which is like quite tough. And then there's, you are switching between hope and despair and sometimes not know. And also you're like in a managing mode because you're talking to the doctors and saying, yeah, they ask you, can we do this? Can we do that? And also you make new connections to the person working there. So you get to know them quite well because you are every day there. So there's a lot of things which changed in my life and were different than before. And somehow music draw me to it. The music draw me to music. If that makes sense. And, and then I wrote these pieces, and one of, one of us at Far Side of the Moon, that was of course my father being in a coma, but also it, it was like, um, you know, when I remembered how my life was with him, there's an aspect, an aspect of childhood fatherhood I am now a father. I know the other side also, which is like a very huge distance between the father and his child or a mother and his child. You are connected, but also in a way there is something you don't understand and you think he, they're in, in this and this sense, he or she is on the far side of the moon. And that is what my piece is somehow about. It circles about this idea that we are connected, but also disconnected in the same time. Yeah, and Perseus, of course, is then the piece we talked about already, uh, the piece about the black hole. And this also came to me, it just came to me, it was just there, and I, I wrote it maybe quicker than any other piece I wrote. It just was there. I, I, um, I work on the piano often and I just play like improvising and then I, I feel, okay, you have something here, and then I explore it further. And Perseus was just really one of the pieces where I didn't reconsider and reconsider again, what I often do, like, but here I decided very quickly, you know, composing is like, uh, also performing, playing piano is like making decisions all the time, isn't it? Like, and, and sometimes you can do it very quickly, and sometimes you need a lot of time, and you are not like in a mood where you can make decisions one after the other. And in this case, I could do it very, very fast, and then the piece was there, and we recorded it, uh, in the, in the remaining recording sessions. And so it, it, they both made it onto the album.

Wow, what a story. You know, I get to interview a lot of composers too, and then they said, oh, my music tells a story. Yes, but sometimes it's nice to hear the backstory too. Just gives a different, I don't know, dimension to this whole entire work, you know what I mean? So I appreciate you for sharing your really personal story here, and you're a good storyteller, by the way.

Oh, thank you so much.

Thank you. So once again, for my audience, please listen to Michael's amazing album called Perseus, available on streaming services. So, um, you know, you are also an educator. You work in a college or university right now, but You used to teach young students too, so 10, 20 years ago, so correct, right? And then you wrote this method book, Der singende Wind.

Singende Wind, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So tell us more about this book, please.

Der singende Wind, which is The Singing Wind. That is a collection of very short pieces I wrote for my piano teaching. And, um, it also introduces the, the very young students into techniques of the 20th century. There's also— it starts with very aleatoric notation, so that's very— a lot of things are free. It's like relatively notated. And And then there are pieces which are actually later on like 12-tone music in a way, but in a very special way, very, very simplified in a way. And then there is a lot of minimal music in there also. So it's like an introduction to modern music in a way. And also it's very— it's full of imagery, like Debussy wrote in his preludes, or also like Liszt sometimes wrote, or these character pieces by Dvořák where it's certain, also like certain topos, certain topoi, like there's the old castle, or Edward Grieg, you know, these lyrical pieces by Edward Grieg. The dancing pieces or these wedding pieces. So that's like a certain imagery which is in, in our, in, in our, in the tapestry of our Western music history for kids. And I also used this in that album. And, um, yeah, um, it sort of was like, like the, like the a summary in a way of my teaching activity, because when this came out, I was already— I already stopped being a piano teacher because I then was appointed as music director at Colonial University. And this music is sort of like— this album is sort of like a testament or my legacy, if that is not too preposterous, of my Piano Teaching in Terms of Modern Music.

I would love to purchase that. Is it available? It is.

Yes, it's available from the Breitkopf and Härtel publishing house, but I believe you can get it on Amazon and everywhere. I think it was quite a success. It got very good reviews. I was happy about this, of course. It's always nice when your work is recognized, of course, and I was very happy. And still to today, um, I— sometimes people write me and they say, I'm really, I'm, I'm really, uh, so happy I found this, this album. That's great. And they love it. And, um, it's, it's nice that this part of my career, um, of my musical life somehow is still in a way there. You know, I feel sometimes when this pops up again, it feels like a letter from, from a former self. You know what I mean? Because it is, it's, I didn't teach piano for maybe 15 years or maybe even more.

Yeah.

Um, except now for my, my own kids. So sometimes I teach them, they haven't, they have a piano teacher, which is not me because I'm, I, I'm struggling to teach my own kids.

It's, it's hard to teach your kids. Yes.

Isn't it? So they have a piano teacher, but not everyone, but some of them. And, but I practice together with my, for my, for example, with my youngest daughter. And then, then this is, this is fun. Also, it's sometimes not fun because when you are so close, you are also like, I'm sure I know, uh, and, and very open and very, uh, yeah. So, um, so my— so this album, I, I see it like in, like a letter from my— from a person I once was, uh, also. And, um, yeah, I'm happy it's there. It's, it's always, always nice, you know. That's the, the beautiful thing as a composer, because you create something which, which stays here. And so it's, uh, it documents, it documents something you created.

Could you take us back to your early musical life? Do you, do you play any other instruments besides piano?

I played a recorder, actually. I started it— I, I had, um, I had lessons in playing the recorder when I started music in Cologne. But apart from that, I don't play all keyboard instruments. So I play like organ. I was like an, you know, like an organ nerd when I was young. And sometimes I was in the church before school and played an hour organ music.

Then how was this composition, the desire to compose? Was introduced or came, came to you?

I think it very much came from, from my organ teaching, because what my, my organ teacher also did was, was that I had to learn all these cadences and all these sequences, all these harmonic patterns, you know, and in every key. So I had this training in playing all these things in every key, and that sort of brought my mind to think in this harmonic rivers and harmonic oceans and to swim in this. And when I was listening to music, I started also to hear it in this way. So I was listening and thinking, ah, he's going from this chord to that chord, that chord, or he's going from this scale excerpt to this scale. And, um, also that started in a way my interest for music theory, um, because I'm also a music theorist. I, I teach today music theory at the university, and that started there because I was thinking music in structures very much and learning these structures and And from young age on, then also came the desire to somehow not only improvise, playing, play freely on the keyboard, but also write something down. There's also this element of being proud of having written something, of course, you know, like, I have accomplished this, this is my piece. And Back in the day when there wasn't a computer and wasn't the software you could use to write notes, you had to do everything by hand. And so my— sometimes I find my early fair copies of my compositions and then I myself am quite— I'm wondering, oh, you did write this and this so carefully and beautifully, actually. And, um, yeah, this element of being, of being proud to have some, to have something done which is there certainly played a role. And, and, and then somehow all these traits going on in my life, um, like, like playing on, on piano, playing on organ, uh, playing in choral rehearsals. I played a lot in current years rehearsals, which, which trained me to play Prima Vista, you know. So like, there's a sight reading, right, right, right. So when I was 14, I was playing in a choral rehearsal and the conductor said, we are going to do these pieces right in front of the rehearsal. So he gave me 3 pieces and I'd never saw them before, and then I was like quickly looking at them and then I had to accompany the chorus. So it was like And, and there was no pressure. That, that was good. There was no pressure when I couldn't do it because he knew you can help or you cannot help. Just play with us, give us the pitches, and so forth. So I learned to sight-read in a very, um, in a very friendly atmosphere where I could make mistakes a lot and so forth. And all these traits come playing keyboard instruments listening to music in a different way. Um, also, uh, then when I started to study, um, I studied actually in the beginning to become a teacher at school, at a normal school. Um, that was my first thing because I didn't know what to do. I wanted to do something in music. I wasn't good enough for to become a real concert pianist. So my technique was not good enough for that. Also, when I practiced too much, I had problems in my fingers, like pain going on. And so I couldn't practice so much. So I couldn't become a concert pianist. And in all this journey where I didn't know where I will be at some time, composing was there all the time, sometimes more, sometimes less. And I'm actually quite happy that I did this like 20 or 25 years, 30 years ago, because in those days you had really to do it by yourself, like write it on a paper. You know, there's a lot of good things when it comes to computers and so forth and KI, of also that, um, AI, uh, also that. But, um, I think when you have to do it, and everybody has to do it, uh, by himself, not having these tools, there's— for me it was a good thing because I could like figure out it by myself, like discover it in my own tempo. And yeah, composing stayed with me all the time and to the— to this very day. And I'm happy about this very much because it's, you know, with composing you can express yourself, you can communicate. You are also— it's like a therapy in a way.

Sure. Oh yeah. Then you were— you got to study with Peter Degenhardt, is that how you pronounce his last name? And so, and that's, uh, he's— that's George Crump's student.

Yes, he studied with George Crump a lot, and he, he introduced me to George Crump's music. Peter was, was, was fantastic. He was really a very inspiring teacher, um, um, and, uh, especially interested in, in, uh, modern music and also in jazz, for example. So he played a lot of jazz and listened to a lot of jazz music. He was very much advocating that we need to cross all these borders we have, like between pop music and jazz music and classical music and contemporary music. And he advocated that very much. And yeah, I was— I actually, I learned a lot about jazz from him, just the pieces that they are there. For example, he listened to so much jazz music And then also for us pianists, they're one of the greatest pianists— were actually jazz pianists, weren't they? I mean, like Oscar Peterson and what a piano technique, incredible. And Peter also introduced me to George Crumb. Yes. And I miss Peter. He died a couple of years ago. Strangely, you know, it's another very strange story. I had a dream that Peter Degenhardt was somehow with me at a place. I don't know what happened. I don't remember. And the next day, a friend of mine wrote me an email that Peter had died. So I believe that Peter just said goodbye to me that night.

Wow.

Yeah, it's true. You couldn't make this up.

Yeah.

And I'm, you know, all these, I think all these people who influenced you and, and, and gave you wings. Yeah. You gave you roots and wings, you know, this saying for sure. And I'm very happy for so many, um, so many personalities which accompanied me in, in my life and, and gave me, gave me, um, inspiration and strength and somehow guided me. To, to, to, to have a life with music. And today I, I'm happy that I can give it back, so to say, when I do my rehearsals and, and also compose. And in particular, when I, when I work at a university where there are young, very young, beautiful souls there coming and want to do music together. And I can help them experience beautiful music and community and share this. And that's— I'm very honored and very privileged to have this job I have at the university. It gives me the opportunity to give something back.

I know you also write— you're known for writing choral works and other ensembles as well. So the recent one, you just told me about this, you were commissioned by the Harvard Choruses and the Massachusetts American Choral Directors Association to arrange Beethoven's Mass in C for four-hand piano with harmonium. So it's a large orchestral work, but they told you to write for four hands. So can you tell us more about this?

You know, there's the tradition of having a big choral repertoire arranged for piano, for four-hand piano, or for two pianos. Beethoven's Mass, First Mass, when Harvard— when I was asked to arrange it, actually the original commission was to arrange it for just piano four-hand. And immediately I said, and harmonium. And they said, yeah, great idea. And so I arranged it for piano, forehand, and harmonium. And, you know, harmonium also is today, it's, it's not that present, but in the 19th century, the harmonium was one of the major instruments there in, in, in the US and also in Europe. It was in churches, in schools, because there was no electricity, you know, and it was an instrument you could easily tune, not like a piano. It was in tune and you don't need anything but just the instrument. Also, it was much cheaper than an organ, so it was everywhere. And it has this unique sound atmosphere, so I wanted to have these colors in this arrangement. You know what happened? I arranged the entire thing very quickly, and I was playing everything myself, like the two players myself. And then I played the inner hands, so the left hand from the primo and the right hand from the secondo part, if it works. So I played this, and then I had a lot of, um, crossing hands devised because I somehow believed, yeah, I don't know, this was better. But yeah, then we had a rehearsal and we played it and I found out it didn't work because it was, you know, I was thinking as a conductor who plays a score with 4 hands. That was what I was thinking, like one person having 4 hands and playing the score. And, you know, like, and this of course would work if there would be a person with 4 hands. And then I And then I rewrote this and had in mind, I need to write this as a pianist, not only as one pianist, but as a piece for two pianists who share this in spirituality, but also in the space they have. And I changed this completely and then it worked. And so, and the harmonium is the third personality. So I needed to recalibrate what I was thinking I was doing. And I was then rearranging it in a way that it's for 3 people, 3 shared minds or hearts who play together, but each of these individuals has her or his own space and can move in that space without struggling to collide with the other one, with the other hand.

So this Beethoven's Mass in C for four-hand piano is available as a score?

It will come out from Bärenreiter Publishing House in this summer, because next year, you know, it's a big Beethoven year. It's the 200th anniversary of his death. And then the score will come out. And, um, uh, yeah, you know, this came completely out of the left field, um, uh, this commission. And I was really— I was like, at first I thought, oh, this is a lot of work. Do, do I want to spend this much time of my life to this project? Because then I can't do other projects. But then immediately I thought, no, that's such a fantastic opportunity to delve into this music and also to explore the piano in a way I haven't before, because I never did this before. I wrote for two pianos and for piano four-hand. I did that, but my own music, and I never arranged it. And there's this rich tradition, like Karl Czerny wrote a lot of this, you know, four-hand, uh, works by Beethoven. There is actually a four-hand version by Czerny of the Beethoven Mass. And, um, but you can't combine it with the chorus because it has all the chorus already in, you know what I mean? It's like the full score and with all the forces is already translated. So the soloists are in the foreground, the chorus is in the foreground. So when you put the chorus now back in, in reality, it doesn't really work because the balance is different and the materials are not It's not structured in the right way. So, but it was interesting to see all these pieces by Czerny, how he did that, how he translated the music, uh, by, uh, which was much larger. For example, what he did was that he, that he often adds, uh, added, um, um, a dissonant note like a seventh to a chord which was not there in the original. And I believe he did that to compensate that you don't have all the orchestra resonances and all the sonorities of the orchestra. So he needed a note more in the chord to give that impression that there is more resonance. I believe it at least. And that was very interesting.

Once it's published, I can't wait to check out this Beethoven Choral. And they also— I want to talk about your Mozart Requiem, right? So tell us.

Yeah, Mozart Requiem is, um, yeah, you know, that's a holy cow. And, uh, as we all know, he himself didn't finish it, but, um, Süssmayr did finish it. And, um, yeah, I— that was something I, I more and more discovered, you know. Like when I experienced— and I remember to this very day that I for the first time noticed or recognized, okay, this is not entirely by Mozart. That was, I think, when I was 18 or 19 years old. And then I noticed like 5 years later, oh, there are different completions because I listened to a completion and I was in the Lacrimosa in bar 9. It was like, huh, different music. It's not Mozart. And then I I learned, okay, there are different completions. And then the next step was that when I started conducting, some of the classes for the church musicians had on the, had on the desk the one of the modern completions. And so I learned to, to analyze this completion and compare it to the Süßmayr and so forth. And yeah, the end of it is that I tried my own completion by studying Mozart's— analyzing Mozart's scores very, very thoroughly and then try to come up with what I think is within the space in which Mozart would have written it. So Of course, it's not what Mozart would have written because nobody can know this. But at least it's inside this stylistic framework, which you can figure out by comparing all the scores.

Is it available as a recording?

Yes, it's on Spotify. There are two recordings. And it's interesting because I, for some of the movements I made alternatives. So there's like, there's a reason for this. I can't, I can't delve into this, this would take too much time, but there's a certain reason because that, that I found out that, uh, that from Sanctus and Benedictus could, could be in Mozart's style in very two very different keys, for example. And so I realized both versions and the conductor needs to decide which versions he's going to perform. And one of the recordings on Spotify has one scenario and the other one has another scenario. So that's great.

So you're meaning you, you created two versions?

Only of two movements.

Oh, I see. Okay.

Okay. Yeah. You know, and so what I, what I was actually, it's like the next step in this history of completing the piece that I involve the performers in deciding how the final version of the piece will appear in the concert.

Oh, it's been so, so much fun, like, talking about your music. I have just a few couple of more questions regarding, like, more philosophical, if that's okay. You talk about, you know, responsibility early, contributing without expecting immediate reward and remaining curious about the unknown? What does the responsibility look like for a young composer or performer today?

That's an interesting question because, you know, composing is like, in a way, creating worlds and, um, and creating provocations or creating reactions, how we live. And I think we need those reactions in, in, in, in a cultural way. It could also be a painting, or it could also be a theater piece or a poem. I believe we need this reaction to know who we are and to know where we want to go and what kind of community we want, want to have and want to be. And, um, I think, you know, I strongly believe that music makes us better humans. And of course, I didn't invent this, this wording, but I strongly believe in this. And, and, um, I believe that we need to try to reinvent ourselves and our music constantly. Um, not that we have to discard what has come before, but for me it's like necessary to have the complete picture, uh, because our life— lives are not a museum where everything is set and everything has been done and you can see it like behind glass and see it as something which is there and you are not able to interact with it. And that's what I believe is very important that we as much as possible can interact and being involved actively in, in modern arts, um, also in sports. The same for me in sports. I, um, and it's not, not only because of the music but because of the community aspect of it, you know, because of the, of the sharing aspect of it, because it's like, it's communication, it brings us together, um, Steve Reich said an interesting thing when he, when he, uh, he said something like when he started to become a composer, everyone was supposed to write his own language because that was the definition of a composer, to, to invent his own language. But then he said the next step for him was to, to recognize that when we each of us speaks his own language only, there can't be a communication. It's actually like Babylon, you know, like Tower of Babel, because nobody knows what the other one is wanting to say. And also it imposes on the others, my language is more relevant than yours. And But what I know theoretically said, in reality is very hard to grasp. And very often I don't know how I would do it or I can do it. But my compositional activity is sort of my humble attempt to seek out how I can do all what I just said. And I think I appreciate other composers very, very much, uh, and, and appreciate when they find it sometimes in— very often in ways much better than I can ever do. And, uh, maybe here it's important for you to just don't give up when you feel this. Um, you know, I very often feel I can't compete with what I just heard, or which— or with that other composers have written so far. But then on the other hand, that's not the reason why I write, to compete.

It's—

the reason is that I communicate what is inside me and wants to be said. And that's what I think, it's sort of the authentic aspect of it, that it needs of course to be in your own language but put in a way that others can, can react to it and can be involved.

Now, so what's coming up for you? What's next? Are you— I'm sure you're working on next few projects and maybe you have an exciting collaboration coming up. Can you tell us as much as you can?

So I'm preparing the Bärenreiter edition of my arrangement that will take time to the summer. Then I will be editing, um, for Bärenreiter. I will— I'm the editor of a new Urtext edition of A German Requiem, and I'm— yeah, I'm working on this for a long time already, actually for more than a year already, and this will come out this year. So this will take a lot of time, uh, to, to prepare everything. Uh, it is It is almost finished, the preparation, but still there's so much going on to make sure it is— everything is correctly printed and so forth and prepared. And yeah, and then there are some commissions for choral music this year. Also, I will give a masterclass in choral conducting for the first time, actually, choral composing, sorry. Choral composing, a new format here. And also I'm working on the next Nordsee Diary, North Shore Diary, on the next one. Okay, volume 3. Um, and then there's this, um, Primes cycle coming also next year. So there's a lot of project. I, I, you know, the older I get the harder it is to switch from one thing I do to the next. So often there is a day I just don't want to switch and I just work on one thing, but actually I need to work on another thing. So what I do is I do like, is that the word in English? Procrastination. With my own projects, I do a procrastination from my other projects.

Well, you know, with experience, each project you do becomes really so profound that it's very hard to switch around, you know? Yeah.

Yeah, that's true. And maybe that's, that's one of the differences when we get more old, when we get older and more like focused on, on one profound project we are working on. Yeah, that's true.

Because, you know, you know what you want, you know? True.

Yes.

Yeah. So what's the best way for my listeners to stay connected with you? Your website, uh, ostriga.com.

Yeah, so everything which is happening, uh, is on that page. There's also an archive and a list of my composition on that page. But, um, also I have an Instagram account and Facebook and also on Spotify. I believe there's the playlist done by Spotify. But if you want to be in contact, uh, that is possible, um, via the homepage.

Great. So that's, uh, ostraga.com. O-S-T-R-Z-Y-G-A dot com. Wow, it's been a wonderful conversation, but before I let you go, we have one more thing to do. It's called The Piano Pod Rapid Fire Questions, and we take this segment very seriously. Um, the questions are quite silly, but, um, the Each answer will give our listeners a glimpse into who you truly are. So let's do this.

Oh yeah.

Now please answer each question with the shortest response possible. No explanation is necessary. So question number 1, what is your comfort food?

Pasta.

Yes, that's a good one. How do you like your coffee in the morning?

With milk, no sugar. Cappuccino, but also just a plain German, we say Filterkaffee, which is It's just the old machine where you put the water in and yeah.

Cats or dogs?

Cats. I have a cat.

Oh, cute. Sunrise or sunset?

That's hard. Oh, I can't choose.

That's good. Summer or winter?

Summer.

What skill have you always wanted to learn but haven't had a chance to?

Flying.

Oh, that's a good one. Yes. What is your word or words to live by?

It's like carpe diem.

Seize the day.

Yeah, right. Because, because I, I often work too hard.

You have to live in the moment, right? Favorite venue you have ever performed in?

Uh, I think it's Cologne Philharmonie because it's great. But you said no explanations.

Okay. What is the most important quality you look for in other people?

It's honesty.

Name one piece in your current playlist. That's hard, but try your best. I don't care if the genre is like hip-hop or pop music or classical.

That is John Williams' film music. Film music.

Last question, fill in the blank: music is blank.

Everything.

Music is everything. Perfect. Michael, thank you so much for joining us today, for sharing your artistry journey and reflections. It's been a really pleasure and honor to have you here. And to our listeners, I encourage you to explore Michael's album Perseus, his ongoing Prime Cycle, and his recent Beethoven Mass The Arrangement, please visit ostriga.com to learn more. You can also find links to his recordings, publications, and upcoming projects in our show notes. And to everyone listening, thank you for spending your time with us. And if this episode resonated, please like this video. And I also love to hear from you. Share your thoughts, leave a comment, and tag us @The Piano Pod with The Piano Pod. We'll see you next time on The Piano Pod with Michael. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for having me. It's my pleasure, my honor to be here.

Thank you. Thank you.