Rafał Zalech - NOSPR

The Polish violist, composer and inventor Rafał Dominik Zalech was born in Wrocław in 1988. He studied viola with Wolfgang Klos, electroacoustic composition with Karlheinz Essl at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, which he graduated with distinctions, as well as at Yale University (USA) and Wrocław (Poland). In the years 2012–2021 he worked with one of the most renowned Ensembles for Contemporary Music – Klangforum Wien, with whom he took part in a significant amount CD productions, as well as countless concert throughout the world. He is the CEO of the Nimikry Music company, as well as co-owner of an internationally recognized patents in musical technology.
As a violist (and composer), he regularly appears at the most important festivals for new music, including the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Wien Modern, Ultrasonic Festival, and Festival TransAmériques. His active concert activities in recent years have included numerous performances, guest lectures and workshops on invitation of academic institutions – Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Electronic Music Collective in New York, Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.
His successful Vienna Konzerthaus solo-debut with the Grisey’s Les espaces acoustiques for solo viola and orchestra (at Wien Modern Festival 2017) got very good critics in the main Austrian daily press (Die Presse, Der Standard).
The focus of his scientific work is the research on electronic augmentation of classical acoustic instruments and their use in the artistic field. Both in his training and in his work with ensembles for new music in the context of concert, theatre, opera and silent film projects, Rafał Zalech pursues the goal of combining composition and interpretation, classical and other musical styles. In doing so, he consciously relies on the inner-musical discourse in composition and sound and in his works develops his own mode of understanding with the audience beyond the usual sonority and structures.
Rafał Zalech is a scholarship holder of i.a. The Ministry of Culture in Austria, The J. Windisch scholarship, The Thyll-Dürr Foundation, Mica Austria and a member of the «Sylff» Program of the Tokyo Foundation. In 2017, he was awarded a starter scholarship by the Austrian Federal Chancellery (art and culture) for the exceptional graduates of art universities throughout Austria.