In this BLOG, the Writing Workshop of the Darmstadt Summer Course, directed by Anne Hilde
Neset, Peter Meanwell and Stefan Fricke, is publishing texts and audio reviews during the festival.
The articles represent the opinion of the respective author.
The Force of Things - eine Klangarchitektur
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Ich sitze zwischen schweigenden Menschen auf einer Turnmatte, um uns Wände aus zerkrumpeltem Papier. In den ausgesparten Ecken spannen sich, knapp überm Boden, segelförmige Stücke aus weiß schimmerndem Material über Lautsprechern. Wie Häute sehen die Zuschnitte aus, die mit Drahtseilen an ein Metallgerüst gespannt sind. Hinter den Häuten und Wänden schwach erleuchtete Scheinwerfer. Eine unwirkliche Szenerie gruppiert sich um die Ansammlung allzu wirklicher Turnmatten: Ich befinde mich im Zentrum von Ashley Fures Konzertinstallation „The Force of Things".
mehrTolerance Stacks - No Flow!
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Am Donnerstag, 11. August 2016, kam das neue Stück „Tolerance Stacks" der kanadischen Komponistin Annesley Black (*1979) bei den Darmstädter Ferienkursen zur Uraufführung. Leider scheiterte die Produktion – eine Hypothese!
mehrKaltes Grinsen und kalkuliertes Zucken
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Steven Takasugis Sideshow bei den Darmstädter Ferienkursen 2016
In den letzten Minuten der Aufführung von Sideshow, dem jüngsten Musiktheater des amerikanischen Komponisten Steven Kazuo Takasugi, gab es ein Missgeschick: Drei Mal ging das grellweiße Bühnenlicht aus und an – nicht ganz synchron mit den wohl dazu gehörenden Bassdrum-Schlägen. Eigentlich hätte das Licht erst am Ende des Stückes ausgehen sollen. Die Panne verstärkte allerdings die gewollt bedrohliche Atmosphäre noch. In diesen Schlussminuten zitterten die acht Musiker auf ihren Stühlen, ihre gefletschten Zähne klapperten, und sie blickten mit leblosen Augen anklagend ins Publikum. Das Bild war das einer Hinrichtung.
mehrWhat are you doing here? Episode Seven
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What Are You Doing presents a final daily show, with Brian Ferneyhough on bad food, Mark Andre on digital natives, the ASMR Weather Girl, Schallfeld Ensemble and a new music fan from Darmstadt itself.
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What are you doing here? New Discipline Special
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Andrew Chung presents a special feature on the New Discipline manifesto, what it means, and doesn't mean for musicians and composers today. Featuring Jennifer Walshe, Natacha Diels, Steven Kazuo Takasugi, Mocrep Ensemble and Brian Ferneyhough.
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What are you doing here? GRiD Special
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Maya Shenfeld and the Writing Workshop team tell the story of this year's focus at Darmstadt on Gender Relations, from the hard facts of historical gender imbalance, to what can be done as individuals and institutions for a fairer, braver and better new music world. Featuring Georgina Born, Jennifer Walshe, Ashley Fure, Stella Veloce and Louis D'Heudieres, Madeleine Johnsson Gille and Thomas Schäfer.
With thanks to all the participants.
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Raising her noise: The Voices Absent in New Music
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One of Europe's most important contemporary music festivals, Darmstadt's International Summer Course for New Music grapples with the future of gender equality in new music, with the release of composer Ashley Fure's archival data on women's role in the festival's past and present.
mehrThe Curvature of Silence
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When American composer Michael Pisaro's sparse Concentric Rings in Magnetic Levitation for piano, percussion, and live electronics, settled over the audience at Darmstadt's Centralstation Halle on August 8, the Distractfold ensemble channeled the radical silences and long-duration stillness of the Wandelweiser Group's post-Cagean aesthetic.
mehrWhat are you doing here? Episode Six
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Friday on Darmstadt Radio: Expanding the Field with Celeste and Miika! The Darmstadt Melting Pot! Falafel Philosophy! Weather with Withers! Competitive Queueing! Attacking the Future! Mocrep! Magic! Music! #darmstadtradio
mehrInfinite now
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In her lecture about her recent work, composer Chaya Czernowin invites the audience to rethink the relationship between voice and breath, to see the complexities revealed when slowing down the singing process, two concepts she examines further in her upcoming opera Infinite Now.
mehrIn Frankfurt erklärt Darmstadt den musikalischen Bankrott
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Das Setting ist perfekt durchdesigned. Im Rahmen der Darmstädter Ferienkurse spielte am Mittwochabend (03.08.16) das Brüsseler ICTUS-Ensemble zusammen mit der Wiener Composer-Performerin Eva Reiter deren Werk The Lichtenberg Figures im Frankfurter LAB. Eva Reiter mit ihren Crossover-Performances, die die alte, die Neue und die Popmusik einbeziehen, und das LAB, das immer auch ein paar szenefremde Studenten mit Sinn fürs Außergewöhnliche anzieht, das passt zusammen: Experimente ohne Risiko, Pop ohne Unterschicht. Das Ensemble ist stufenartig um die singende Eva Reiter gruppiert, die im Dämmerlicht der Coolness über allem thront.
mehrWhat are you doing here? Episode Five
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Today on the official unofficial radio show of Darmstadt Summer Course: Hugs, lip-synching and floor-sliding! Alex and Maya in the confrontation zone! A sweaty studio! Heloisa Amaral feeds back! Ulrich Mosch in the musicology zone! The weather brought to you by Samuel Beckett! Max goes mental! #darmstadtradio
mehrGegensätze ziehen sich an
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Konzertbesprechung: Extended Strings
Gegensätze ziehen sich an. Mögen Kontrabass und Elektronik doch wie ungleiche Partner erscheinen, so wurde man am 02. August 2016 beim Konzert Extended Strings in der Darmstädter Orangerie eines Besseren belehrt. Nachdem das Stück von Bernhard Lang leider entfiel, bot sich die Möglichkeit das ungleiche Duo im Werk Kaleidoscopic memories des namhaften Komponisten Beat Furrer zu erleben. Das Stück wurde im Juni in Paris uraufgeführt und erfuhr am gestrigen Abend seine deutsche Erstaufführung. Durch die elektronische Aufnahme, Wiedergabe und Überlagerung der Kontrabassklänge entstanden in diesem Werk die verschiedensten Klangkonstrukte, in denen doch tatsächlich das Verständnis eines Kaleidoskops in die Musik transferiert werden konnte.
mehrChanging places
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Composer David Helbich's and Jennifer Walshe's composer perfomer workshops is redefining the classical music's traditional roles
In recent years the title composer performer has become more and more common. Together with Irish composer Jennifer Walshe, the Brussels based artist David Helbich leads this year's performer composer workshop at the Darmstadt International Summer School. I met up with him to reflect on how composers and performers can merge into one entity, and to hear more about their workshop.
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What are you doing here? Episode Four
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The "I Have Good News" Episode: The Writing Workshop English Faction returns with their daily cabbage patch of Neue Musik insights including: MOCREP members speak! Ine Vanoeveren plays! Wieland Hoban translates! Krzysztof Marciniak and Monika argue! Plus Alex returns with a metereological smorgasbord, and Thomas Schäfer has good news!
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What are you doing here? Episode Three
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A blistering 25 minutes of white-hot Neue Musik radio from the IMD Writing Workshop! Featuring Jennifer Walshe and Ashley Fure in interview! the politics of getting in to concerts! live music from New Zealand! Reflections on Douglas Barret's lecture! A message from Chaya Czernowin! Concert reviews! The weather!
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mehrWhat are you doing here? Episode Two
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"What Are You Doing Here?" Episode two of the official unofficial Darmstadt Radio Show - featuring violinist Keir GoGwilt performing Carolyn Chen live, Georgina Born on GRID, Klaus Lang on Harmoniums, robust discussion and the weather forecast.
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mehrMonday was an important day at Darmstadt
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A personal reflection by Donal Sarsfield
Monday was an important day at Darmstadt. It was important because nothing happened. Nothing that hadn't happened before. Nothing that won't happen again, tomorrow, or the day after. Everything stayed the same.
mehrMen at Schlagwerk
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Percussion concert showcases theatre and extremity
The four percussion pieces that comprised the Centralstation concert on 1 August were so hugely divergent in style and substance that experiencing them all within the space of a single evening was tantamount to whiplash. Performers Håkon Stene and Christian Dierstein offered a fascinating contrast. Dierstein's playing was extremely introverted, almost mime-like, as if performing a series of sacred rituals. Stene was the diametric opposite, manic and flamboyant, recklessly hammering wine glasses and cracking Noh-like facial expressions. Both were fascinating to watch, and obviously devoted a great deal of time, effort, and patience into their performances. It paid off.
Uraufführung mit Pannen
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Stefan Prins' Piano Hero
Darmstadt, 30.7.2016 22.30 Uhr, Vorplatz der „Centralstation" - warten auf Prins. Schnell spricht sich herum, die Aufführung von Stefan Prins' Klavierzyklus Piano Hero müsse aufgrund von Verzögerungen bei einer anderen Veranstaltung eine Stunde später beginnen. Unmut macht sich breit. Immerhin ist es kurz darauf möglich, schon einmal den abgedunkelten, in blaues Licht getränkten Konzertsaal zu betreten. Dort sieht man den Komponisten hektisch zwischen Bühne und Regiepult laufen, Kabel und Geräte checken, mit Technikern diskutieren. Gehört das vielleicht schon zum Stück?
mehrI Sing The Body Acoustic
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Open Space flute performance confronts corporeality
The University of California at San Diego is a city on a hill – a citadel for some of the most exciting and radical experimentation occurring in the United States, being done by a hugely diverse student body from every continent. Three of its students – one current, two former –were on display at an Open Space performance this Wednesday. One was flautist Ine Vanoeveren, who has recently completed her PhD on performing Ferneyhough, and the pieces in this performance represent three of her closest and most fruitful collaborations with composers over the past four years.
mehrTicket to the Freak Show
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A conversation with Steven Kazuo Takasugi
Boston-based composer Steven Takasugi's Sideshow, a music theatre piece performed by the Talea Ensemble, evokes the sights, sounds, and stories of the notorious circus events that took place in the amusement parks of Coney Island, New York during the early 1900s. This conversation took place at the composer's Darmstadt office.
mehrTicket to the Freak Show Part II
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Talea ensemble members Ryan Muncy (saxophone) and Rane Moore (clarinet) on performing Takasugi's Sideshow
mehrInfinity: Feldman's String Quartet no. 1
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Ladies and gentlemen, a brief silence before we begin...
mehrpianoPTICON
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Pianist Stèphane Ginsburgh steps onstage the second evening of the Darmstadt Fereinkurse to perform one of the first concerts of the festival calendar. The three completed works of Stefan Prins' Piano Hero (2011-2016), an ongoing cycle of works for keyboardist, live electronics, and video, unfold in a deeply paranoid reflection on surveillance and the extension of the performer through media technology. Prins' work joins the stream of socially critical events programmed for this year's 70th anniversary Ferienkurse.
mehrInto the Deep Web
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When the deliberations of the jury resemble a 1970s game show, music theatre's already tenuous relation to realism was stretched to its limit across the variety show that was the Darmstadt International Music Theatre Competition.
mehrTrials and Tribulations for Staatstheater Jury
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Out of 160 submissions, this evening five composers were each given the opportunity to showcase an opera scene, lasting approximately 15-20 minutes. The winning entry, to be decided openly on stage by an attending jury, would receive a full operatic commission for 2018. However, in an unfortunate turn of events, it was the jury that came to spark the most drama of the evening.
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