Akóz Rózmann (1939-2005) was born in Budapest and studied composition at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm between 1971-1974, following organ and composition studies at the Litzt Academy. With this background, alongside his work as organist at a catholic church, from 1978 he dedicated himself to musique concrète and composed an impressive body of works, often spiritual and alchemical in nature. In the early 1980s he founded his own private electroacoustic studio in the basement of the catholic church, while also working at EMS.
Akóz Rózmann's 12 Stations (Tolv Stationer, 1978-2001) was originally commissioned as a 5-minute piece, and over 20 years evolved into a challenging 6 1/2 hour epic; a deep, spiritual journey that is considered a central work of Rózmann’s oeuvre. 12 Stations thematically draws on the Tibetan Wheel of Life, and reflects Rózmann's deep interest in Tibetan Buddhism.
Duration: 6 hours, 33 minutes and 34 seconds.
Live diffusion by Mats Lindström.
"Man meets different difficulties and sufferings through his wandering. These are forces between which a continuous struggle is going on. He cannot control and preside over these forces. He is being tossed up and down, powerless, like snowflakes in the storm: chaotic thoughts and feelings, gladness and suffering, which flow without intermission like a river that has no beginning nor end. All these are the fruits of our own deeds. However, in this life you have the chance to make easier those life wanderings that are to come."
- Akós Rózmann (from the program notes for the 1984 premiere of the first Seven Stations).
"Epic in scale, timbre, technique, mood and movement, Twelve Stations is a unique masterpiece of 20th Century musique concrète and presents itself as an intensely personal and bold realm of sound, an offering as such, a radical mass open to all."
- Mark Harwood, in the press text of the 7 CD "12 Stations" box set on Ideologic Organ/Editions Mego.
Mats Lindström has worked with live diffusions of Akós Rózmann's works for 20 years, and alongside his work as director for EMS, is an active electroacoustic composer and performer of live electronics. He has a background as a technician in the electronics industry, constructs his own unique electronic instruments, and was previously chairman of Fylkingen (1998-2000). In 2012, Stephen O'Malley's Ideologic Organ released his first solo album, "МИГ", partly recorded with jet engines at JSC "Klimov" Aviation Engines Museum, St Petersburg, Russia.
ISSUE Project Room’s Swedish Energies Festival, the fourth-annual presentation, celebrates 50 years of Stockholm's Elektronmusikstudion, aka EMS. Presented by ISSUE in collaboration with EMS, and the Consulate General of Sweden in New York, over three evenings December 4th, 5th and 6th, at ISSUE and Experimental Intermedia, the series brings together a wide-ranging international lineup of visionary electronic and improvisational musicians spanning genres of sound and visual art.
