Venezuelan composer Marko Ivic uses his arrangements to explore the human experience through rich instrumentals. After completing his education in classical piano at the University of Zagreb in Croatia and earning a Master’s degree in Live Electronics from the Conservatory in Amsterdam, Marko now dives into the world of electro-acoustic music.
Marko’s most recent release is ‘Mudita’, a gracious piano composition that progresses from a soft and evocative opening into vast peaks. Emotions rise and fall as the melodies go from twinkling brightness to a solemn haze. As we reach the climax, the piano begins to be pulled around by digital processing, unnaturally swirling around captivating rhythms as the intensity builds. The tension soon reaches a dramatic breaking point, before fading back into delicate melodies, this time more pointed and reverberant.
Marko shares an insight into the track, “Mudita is one of the most intuitive songs of the album. In terms of composition, it came to life very fast. I was improvising one day when I “discovered” the melody, and within 2 days the song was finished, and remained in that shape all the way till the recording days. Other songs in the album, for example, experienced changes and corrections over a longer period of time.
The title came later, when I was trying to find a suitable name for it. Since the beginning, the song had a mystical feeling for me, like alluding to something ancient, eternal, like the earth.
But one day, while I was on a plane, I was reading a book with the conversations between the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, when I heard the term Mudita for the first time. The Dalai Lama explained that in Buddhism, Mudita is a word used to describe a feeling of well-being because of someone else’s fortune, like the opposite for feelings of envy, or something like that.
The meaning captivated me, and I immediately felt I had found a title for the song. The song has a cyclical harmonic structure, and this makes me think of interconnectedness and how joy is something we can experience even if it is in someone else’s experience. For me, to be kind to someone else is the most powerful act we have in our hands.”
‘Mudita’ is out now, check it out!
