‘if change does not take place in thinking,
and does not take place in music,
then it does not take place anywhere’.
-Matthias Spahlinger, political implications of the material of new music (2008)
PROGRAMA
The single stroke meditation - Pauline Oliveros
Three2 - John Cage
Off - Matthias Spahlinger
percussionistas:
Alberto Annhaus
Alexander Smith
Brian Archinal
Francisco Cipriano
Núria Carbó Vives
Luis Azcona
(a)political musicality?
It is unavoidable. The political events of now have caught up to artists in that no artistic act remains apolitical. The musical-political relationships we aim to explore in this program remind us of the sensitive and provocative moment in which we live. A simple instrumentation strips away the sonic excess which is often distracting from the beauty of the singular and reinforces the ensemble’s unity through simplicity. This instrumental focus brings the players together to experiment and refine their musical relationships, independent of extra-musical concerns with utopian aspirations.
Utopia is fantastic, meaning it is a fantasy with its origins in each individual. It begins with a sense of dreaming, for an ideal or perhaps even something more tangible, but the moment it transitions from the imagined to the real, it has already drifted into Wirklichkeit, one constructed out of its own individual nature. In Pauline Oliveros’ The Single Stroke Roll Meditation she asks the performers to ”Imagine all of the possible sounds” and “the performance is over if your mind wanders” but leaves the open question of length and scope. How can we sustain utopian thought in a time of instant and total awareness to all information - at all times? The open-form poetic nature of the score creates different modes of group interaction and strips the power structures of an otherwise predetermined set of musical relationships.
Anarchy of silence
The later works of John Cage, known as the “Number Pieces,” show Cage reaching the purest expression of his musical work. Sounds speak for themselves and remain a product of the moment. The amount of different fields of Art that Cage was active in is astonishing, and speaks to the ever-questioning manner of his work. Perhaps most known for his work 4’33’’, John Cage opened many ears to a rebalancing of musical power structures. Instead of the musicians working dependant of each other to create a group sound and approach to communal musical relationship, the roles of the musicians are again changed, each now focusing on the moment of individual musical production, unaware (perhaps unconcerned?) of the total musical experience. A turning inward. The limits of music, and therefore silence, are only determined by the independent, ubiquitous listener, listening from a social position. The piece cannot exist without this specific relationship of performer to audience.
"the question remains if, because of its institutional character, musical praxis really belongs to that political concept that divides the world into friend and enemy. systems of perception and interpretation have their styles. style is a societal category, and stylistic characteristics can be perceived as belonging to an enemy society or to societal groups.
is it true that music is international and binds people? who ever invented that sentimental kitsch? which nation has not hated the music of its minorities and enemy ethnicities, and excluded and forbidden their art? common amongst enemies are the following facts: all have nationalistic countries that fight against each other, and all have national anthems which are stylistically similar, since they were composed during an epoch of national fervour: in some cases they were composed by foreigners, or share the same melodies as those from foreign cultures. such insanity should really belong to the past." (1)
Politic as sonic material
The method of creation and composition is an integral part of the listening experience. The relational organization of the act of musical production is on equal footing with the musical. This has an immediate connection with the political aspects of the performance. Matthias Spahlinger speaks of the political implications of music:
“i want to draw attention to the fact that i am always concerned with dismantling hierarchies. the many variations of bar length and metre—heard as unifying principles in traditional music—allow themselves to be changed from, so to speak, the bottom to the top via rhythmic modulation and actual variation.” (1)
The question of OFF is how the the “basic” musical material, consisting of drum-exercise like sticking patterns, when mapped to modulating parameters, can produce a highly engaging, yet ever changing physical influence on gesture and musicality. And what effect does this have on the listener? Does one perceive the ensemble’s relationships through the dismantling of musical hierarchies, and how does this affect long-form listening?
1. mathias spahlinger (2015) political implications of the material of new music, Contemporary Music Review, 34:2-3, 127-166
HKB Percussion
The HKB (Bern Academy of the Arts) Percussion stands for an technical-experimental approach to guiding players into the modern storm of music performance. A creative and broad approach to music performance and aesthetics prepares students for the challenging and wide-ranging field of music performance opportunities.
Jochen Schorer (SWR Orchestra) and Christian Hartmann (Zürich Tonhalle) lead the orchestral and mallet percussion approach next to Brian Archinal (Ensemble Nikel, ET|ET) with his contemporary vision.
Alumni from the HKB are present at all levels of musical employment in Switzerland and internationally.