Lukáš Janata is a Czech San Francisco-based artist, composer, educator, performer, and organizer whose work asks an important question: how can creativity inspire empathy?

His recent endeavors include board directorship at the Resonance Project, a nonprofit focusing on music as a conflict transformation through neuroscience. He co-organized a San Francisco Ukraine-benefit, Concert of Compassion, uniting national American and Ukrainian artists on one stage.

Janata also co-curated SUMU in Helsinki, supported by the EU Commission, and regularly co-hosts the international empathy-provoking new-music festival, Echoes, in Prague. He instructs at the Walden School and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

In 2024, he will be Composer-in-Residence at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, ISCM’s VICC, and will receive the Susan and Ford Schumann Fellowship for the 2024 Aspen Music Festival. His compositions have been commissioned by renowned ensembles including San Francisco Symphony, Cantori New York, Friction Quartet, and Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava.

Janata describes his piece, GRAAL, which will receive it’s world premiere at MICF, as “a piece that is a departure from my former artistic goals: chasing and losing something intangible, yet with a clear vision; with moments of clarity, muddied in the sound world of a perpetual falling and rising cycle of bright and dark.”

GRAAL will be performed by MICF Resident Ensemble Alarm Will Sound. “Working with inflections between just-tuned and 24-ET intervals to create a chiaroscuro coming in and out of focus is a vulnerable state for me,” Janata says, “and I cannot imagine a better collaborator than Alarm Will Sound and its director Alan Pierson.”

Regarding MICF in general, he adds, “I am thrilled to experience the milieu around Mizzou New Music and meet the audience that Mizzou attracts. Embracing new music with enthusiasm presents a unique challenge. As an organizer myself, I also recognize the meticulous effort required in curating such a festival. I eagerly anticipate witnessing the event’s unfolding, and I am excited to discover new ideas and approaches and engage with the local audience.”

For more information about Janata and his music, visit https://www.lukasjanata.cz