Antonin Fajt

Composer & Pianist

Antonin’s music combines elements of folkloric traditions of Eastern Europe, jazz and classical composition. Toni grew up in Lelekovice, in the Moravian region of Czech Republic in a musical family. His mother, Iva Bittová is a singer, violinist and composer, and his father, Pavel Fajt is a drummer and composer. Antonín moved to the Hudson Valley, NY in 2007. He likes to work with preparations, folk materials, sampling, texture, and repetition. Toni holds a BA in music from Bard College ’14, where he studied under the mentorship of the composer Joan Tower. Besides music, he likes to cook, work outside, make events, and pretend to know things. He's been fortunate to work with wonderful musicians such as Dean Sharp, Niloufar Shiri, Window Quartet, Andrei Kvapil, Henry Birdsey, George Mráz, Jessika Kenney, Eyvind Kang, Michael Dessen, PUBLIQuartet, or the ICE ensemble. He can be heard with his group Mantis with Niloufar Shiri, in duo with Iva Bittová, or in improvised music scenes in New York and southern California. He holds an MA from the Integrative Composition, Improvisation and Technology program at UC Irvine where he is currently finishing his PhD dissertation and composing a larger musical work centered around the Hudson River and it's two-way flow as a representation of time.