"Future Music began with Teodora Stepančić’s solo clarinet piece “Clarinet No.6 (*Katie).” The piece’s stillness jarred the room into a stupor, with Porter balancing held tones and multiphonics across tightropes of sound and tense gaps of silence. Porter’s control of her tone and dynamics kickstarted the night with a breathtaking blend of technical awe and musical profundity. Each note hung in the air well after its release, outlining a single melody over the course of its runtime. This musical patience froze time, drawing listeners’ focus away from reflecting on what’s passed or anticipating what’s to come. Instead, each tone formed a moment unto itself, resonant and stately."
Connor Lockie, Utah's Art magazine
"There is an astonishing unity to the music even as its elemental diversities are obvious, a statically strange mating of unity and diversity that necessitates an expert performer. Teodora Stepancic reminds me of another favorite “new music” pianist, Sabine Liebner, in that both achieve superb clarity while avoiding overstatement. Stepancic voices each harmony so that components are clear without mannerism, but there’s also no iciness or rough edges to the playing..." "Stepancic brings a Romantic touch to Taylor’s music which is and is not Romantic. Her pianism walks the line between academia and nostalgia as she renders each sonority and the melody bolstering it emotionally satisfying, each dynamic gradation a slope rather than a step. Slightly distant but not overly ambient, the recording brings life to those characteristics of her playing most suited to unlocking this music’s secrets, its removal from trend and its yearning for resolutions that never quite occur.
Marc Medwin, Dusted magazine
"However, especially noteworthy was Rastko Uzunović’s (Растко Узуновић interpretation of Klarinet br.__(Кларинет бр.__; “Clarinet No.__”), a clarinet piece by Teodora Stepančić (Теодора Степанчић). Uzunović performed this piece, which revolves around long, sustained tones taking turns after prolonged rests, with much patience and focus, paying attention to its many tonal shades. Playing with time, the composer has created a simple piece, but one that is also laden with tension, which gives prominence to the performer’s skills in focusing on the quality of a single note, its volume and intensity, something that Rastko Uzunović, with his sensitive and careful playing, accomplished to the full."
Radoš Mitrović, New Sound International Journal of Music
"The turn of the century has brought fresh blood to the ranks. The short list includes a group of composer/performers of remarkable diversity:Hugo Morales, Henry Vega, Teodora Stepancic, Samuel Vriezen, Eef van Breen, Pete Harden, Evelien van den Broek, Sandra Pujols, Bart de Vrees, Thomas Myrmel, Daniel Cross, Florian Maier all of whom have their own take on how to get the job done. In this new century where interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary art and crossing borders are not only supported by our audiences but also highly recommended by the structural funding sources, the tag as composer/performer no longer implies something out of the ordinary. These folks play laptops in bands in the Studio LOOS while the next day their ensemble works go into premiere in the Korzo Theater. They make music theater for the international November Music Festival in Den Bosch and show up on the off days as improvisers in the local squats. They place themselves as improvising soloists in otherwise fully composed orchestra works with the Holland Symfonia as part of a composition competition."
Composers / performers in the Netherlands: the nuts and bolds, by Anne La Berge
"Teodora Stepancic plays with subtle control at the piano, making use of the many expressive possibilities that this highly developed instrument offers. Her expressive spectrum ranges from almost impressionistic passages to massive walls of sound and percussive noises inside the grand piano. She develops delicate aural nuances that shimmer through the loud noise of the electronics. The result is a fascinating music full of contrasts, with an ever-changing interplay between its different layers."
Benedikt v. Bernstorff
"...het pianospel van Stepanĉić indrukwekkend."
Anouk Leeuwerink @ Theaterkrant
"Het intrigerende slotstuk Everybody pays attention to the things in space, but who pays attention to the space itself? van Teodora Stepanic doet de oren spitsen door met spaarzame klanken de nadruk te leggen op ruimtelijkheid. De compositie is ook een choreografie waarin de muzikanten verschillende poses aannemen of hun instrumenten neerleggen om ze vervolgens weer ter hand te nemen.
Naar het eind krijgen publieksleden dekentjes uitgedeeld, met de opdracht die om de snaren van de contrabas, over de xylofoon, en voor de band van de klarinettist te draperen. De gitarist krijgt ovenwanten aan. Spelen wordt lastig tot onmogelijk, klanken verdwijnen. Steeds minder geluid dringt door de stof heen. Waar in het eerste deel van de avond de ruimte en ruimtelijkheid oplost, vallen nu de geijkte rituelen van de concertuitvoering uiteen. Daarmee wordt een daverend verstild slotakkoord gegeven aan een avond avontuurlijke hedendaagse gecomponeerde muziek op het scherpst van de snede."
Sven Schlijper @ KindaMuziek
"In ‘Big Blue Blazer’ by Teodora Stepancic, the perception of audio-visual space is influenced by two members of the MAE walking around the performance space with stage lights. These moving spotlights highlight different musicians of the ensemble, members of the audience or places in the space. In the meantime, the trombonist (Koen Kaptijn) is also walking around, playing his beautifully lit instrument
The composition is built on a basic tonal structure giving the percussionist (Orlando Aguliar) the freedom to run around his set and apparently ‘randomly’ play the percussion instrument nearest to his spatial position. When the music starts to peter out, a fire is lit in the middle of the group of musicians, possibly to visually reposition the spatial centre towards the grouped musicians (although some of whom had actually left the space). The compositional ‘cocktail made of hot water, whisky and fire’, as Stepancic describes it, is spatially re-focused by a continuous re-ordering of the perception of visual space."
from Dissolve: Rooms’ presented by STEIM in collaboration with Ensemble MAE
Report by Stan Wijnans. Photos by Theo Howard