jaroslaw ilski

composer, producer, performer

ilski, full name Jaroslaw Ilski, was born in Poland in 1984 and is currently living in Berlin, Germany. He is studying for a bachelor degree in composition at Universität der Künste Berlin, writing and performing works in the fields of intonation, improvisation and electronic composition.

In parallel to these studies, he is realizing electronic music production projects both for himself as well as commissioned work, concentrating on the use of carefully recorded sound, one of his cornerstones being playing, recording and editing of his drumset in a way custom to each track/composition.

As a performer/instrumentalist he has studied and performed both classical as well as jazz piano, drums and percussion (jazz, funk), both solo as well as in bands and has been performing his music as a DJ.

For contacting, try one of facebook, twitter, soundcloud or youtube from the social networks page.

the prime (trailer soundtrack, 2015)

duration: 30 sec.

premiered 20th april 2015 online

The soundtrack for The Prime consists of recordings made almost entirely of non-instruments like vases, glasses, plates and especially various kind of musical and non-musical children's toys. The sounding objects were first explored, then played in conjunction with the movie to find fitting spots and then finally recorded in little segments and edited after the fact. In this project, one goal was to move the compositional process, even for an electronic piece, to outside of the computer.

fallout love, soundtrack (2015)

music, edit: jaroslaw ilski

videography: takeshi furuya

premiered on 30th of Jan. 2015 in Berlin

T.F. and ilski - Fallout Love from ilski on Vimeo.

The soundtrack to fallout love consists of recordings of drums, acoustic bass, voice, flute and other instruments. They are cut and arranged to fit with the flow of the video editing. The essence of this project was to give the viewer and listener a complex, trip-like experience, sending them to be engulfed in a mixed world of visuals and music.

The drums play a special role in this soundtrack. There is up to four layers of drumset and two layers of percussion, played and recorded specifically for this project. The unusual combination of machine-like editing and acoustic sounding drums are utilized to lend a feeling or urgency to the music.

lumi, composition for solo piano (2014)

premiered on 16th of Feb. 2014 in Berlin, (piano, J. Ilski)

This piece is constructed mostly of instructional sections/measures. These instructions are presented in text or musical notation or a combination thereof. Although one possible interpretation is improvisation, non-improvisational performances are not excluded. This includes notating the piece and learning to play that precisely, practicing specific forms of interpretation or achieving a performance through means of computer generation of the score, being real-time or not. Still, improvisation will be used as a term for either of these modes of performance.

nr. 8, composition for flute, horn, percussion, violin, viola and double bass (2014)

duration: 5 min.

premiered on 13th of July 2014 in Berlin, (Anah Lee, fl; Henning Wehmeyer, hn; Christopher Lane, pc; Han Sol Lee, vln; Lukas Pfeiffer, vla; Adam Goodwin, cbs; Yu-An Chang, conductor)

nr. 8 is an transcription of an earlier electronic piece for acoustic sextett. electronic granular sounds have been re-written as tremoli and various noises performed on the instruments, but the form of the composition has been kept as in the original.

ghost image, electronic composition (2014)

duration: ca. 7 min.

premiered on 30th of Nov. 2014 in Berlin, (loudspeaker orchestra, performance by J. Ilski)

"ghost image" is an electronic composition of acoustic recordings (grand piano, mbira, guitar, 22" ride cymbal). The choice of editing methods had been limited on purpose and is divided into composition by microphonization and resampling on the one hand and mixing by equalization, compression, panning and an impulse response recorded withing a piano on the other hand.

I performed the premiere in Nov. 2014 on an array of over 40 different loudspeakers, mounted in different positions in at HfM Hanns Eisler in Berlin.