This project by no means excludes “music”, but above all is an opportunity to reflect on presentation forms for acoustic works, for sound compositions that go beyond the classic concert setup. This is a course for young artists representing different disciplines, who work together in creating installations or performances at different locations in public spaces.

Field recordings, site-specific compositions and installations, the presentation of sounds, sound production as a social pattern, the essentials of sound and music, music without sounds, technology and research into source material, the body in music, archaeoacoustics, sound and other media, perception and reality – these are just some of the potential themes to be explored, elaborated, and presented by the participants in their own works in this workshop series that combines theory and practice. The direction and focus of each workshop is ultimately be determined by the individual concepts and ideas of the participants and also depends on the available venues, galleries, and performance possibilities.

In preparation of the final workshop in August 2014 organized during the the 47th International Summer Course for New Music,  Peter Ablinger met selected young artists from 23rd to 25th April in Darmstadt and from 8th to 10th May in Utrecht to train them and guide them in the process of making site specific works.

At this occasion, they had the possibility to visit different places in the cities of Darmstadt and Utrecht to prepare their future site-specific works.

Work session in Darmstadt (April 2014), workshop participants – Credits : Elena Rykova

Work session in Darmstadt (April 2014), a young artist with Peter Ablinger – Credits : Elena Rykova

Work session in Utrecht, at the Botanic Gardens (May 2014) – Credits : Henk Heuvelmans

Work session in Utrecht, at the Botanic Gardens (May 2014) – Credits : Henk Heuvelmans

More photos of these two works sessions are on our Facebook page!

Next and final step for this project is planned in August 2014 during the 47th International Summer Course for New Music in Darmstadt (DE) with a workshop on new works using sound, in situ. It will lead to public presentations, installations and performances.

Find more information about the project here.

Flagey – Studio 4 (Brussels, Belgium)

Daniele Ghisi  Itaca

Rich O’Meara  Restless

Luciano Berio Three Folk Songs

Federico Gardella Quaderno di sabbia

Traditional song Bonjour : « Salama Toup’ko »

Arr. Sarah Goldfarb

Further to its Milanese premiere in 2012 of two compositions by Daniele Ghisi and Federico Gardella, GIOCARE la MUSICA was performed again to great acclaim at Flagey in Brussels (BE) on December 2^nd and 3^rd, 2013.

The works were performed by the ensemble Musiques Nouvelles, under the baton of Jean-Paul Dessy, and a children’s choir, prepared by Gwedoline Spies and Sarah Goldfarb of ReMua.  102 students from the Saint-Henri (Woluwé-Saint-Lambert) and Les Etangs (Ixelles) schools joined forces to take part in this unique project, which celebrates contemporary music and its accessibility to audiences of all ages and backgrounds.

At the heart of the program lie the two works by Italian composers Ghisi and Gardella whose compositions encouraged children’s spontaneous sense of expressivity.  Brought together through song, theater, and improvisation the children experimented with different sounds under the watchful accompaniment of seasoned professional instrumentalists.  The works were written in such a way as not to exclude those children who had not acquired sight-reading skills, using simple, legible elements, understood instinctively by all.

In Gardella’s work the children are given the opportunity to discover an aspect of today’s music by requiring that they interpret the work and as such, by giving them a sense of responsibility over the work. But the overall theme was one centered around sharing the stage, the music, and the experience.  In the words of Gardella: « I asked myself what I hoped the children would take away from this experience: The idea that through sharing we learn to become ourselves. »

Itaca is an anthology of works, which reflects, more or less directly, certain musical works of arts from Ockeghem to Grisey, which have marked Ghisi’s path and training as a composer. Manipulating these works and using them as raw materials as he has in Itaca «were the occasion to ask (him)self what is universal or authentic. Belonging, universality, authenticity are often concepts, which, in the hands of composers, collide in the face of the rigidity of authors’ rights.  In the end, all music is meta-music. »

More information can be found online. 

Photo credit : Isabelle Français

Photo credit : Isabelle Français

Open discussion with comments and reactions to the Ulysses project and community tool presentations, with the participation of different professional actors involved in the field of new music and young creation : 

* Kaiser-Sigmund-Straße 47, 60320 Frankfurt, Deutschland

The final concert of the project was performed in the framework of the MiTo festival in Milano, on 13th September 2013 at Auditorium San Fedele, by Klangforum Wien under the direction of Jean-Michaël Lavoie. After the concert Aurélien Dumont was awarded with the prize.

I. Aurélien, first of all, our congratulations!  For each year of the project the participating composers were asked to write not only for a different instrumentarium (solo piano in the first year, string quartet in the second year and ensemble of 14 musicians in the last year), you were also requested to find inspiration in a particular philosophical context. This year, Chinese cosmology and the vision of the universe in the work of Hildegard of Bingen have been given as theme to the concert ‘Unirsi al cielo’. How did you react to these constraints and how did they influence your work? How did you tackle the theme in order to adapt it to your work?

Thank you very much!

Yes, that is one of the particularities of this competition. Except perhaps the first year, when we had to write a Bagatelle for piano to be included between Beethoven’s bagatelles, projects were close to philosophical or literary aspects (for example the second year, we had to work on Dante’s Divine comedy).

Concerning the project ‘Unirsi al cielo’, the constraints appeared progressively; first it was the idea of the five elements in Chinese cosmology (water, fire, wood, metal, earth) and the human as a sixth. One of the pieces was supposed to be with electronics. So we decided rapidly that the last piece, which symbolizes the union in human, to be with electronics.

Then Antonio Pileggi suggested me to have a reflexion about the mystical aspect of Hildegarde of Bingen who could be connected with the project. I thought the idea was very exciting because I love Gregorian music – I studied Gregorian music during my study in Paris Conservatory, in the class of Louis-Marie Vigne. It was interesting also for me to include it in my musical preoccupation, especially on my search on heterogeneity.

II. Please tell us more about the cooperation with the other young composers who participated in the project. Have there been confrontations between different esthetics or approaches, as the participants come from many different European countries, but also from different cultural and pedagogical backgrounds?

The ambiance between us was very good! In fact our cooperation consist mainly in discussion together during our meeting with invited composers or artists. This is another specificity of this competition: composers were in the same time competitiors and associated! Finally, though the pieces were different, the ensemble of the whole program sounded very coherent, thanks to Antonio Pileggi’s direction and amazing musicians from Klangforum & Jean-Michael Lavoie.

III. This last of your three works for Premio San Fedele was also the piece you wrote as final work for the Cursus 2 at IRCAM. Thus your work includes live electronics. Can you tell us how your work changes when you write with electronics? And will there be any future developments of the electronic part of your piece for the concert that is planned at Ircam in Paris in summer 2014?

I am not really sure if my work changes with electronics. In fact, I always use it when it’s possible. It’s a good way to develop my idea of musical heterogenity.

Yes, the version for Paris concert will include a new spatialisation device – WFS system. It’s important for this piece beacause there is a virtual choir (pre-recorded by the great Ensemble Aedes) that appear three times as a rupture with the instruments. I want to create a special focus on choir and I wish the new version with WFS could underline this dramatical effect.

IV. What are your projects for the next years and do you think they will give you the occasion to cooperate again with some of the fellow composers and artists you met at San Fedele and Ircam?

For 13-14, I will premiere a new piece for ensemble with electronics during Ultraschall Festival in Berlin by the Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain under the direction of Pierre-André Valade. The big project for me will be the premiere of my new opera Chantier Woyzeck, for 10 instruments, 8 soloists, 4 young singers and electronics on may 14 by Ensemble 2e2m. I will also write choral music for Ensemble Aedes and Les cris de Paris.

In 14-15, I will write a Musiktheater-piece for a project with Benjamin Lazare and Geoffroy Jourdain about The Dybbuk, by An-ski…

As you see I really enjoy projects in collaboration, and I hope to have new cooperation with IRCAM in the future – it was really fabulous to work with Alexander Mihalic and Sylvain Cadars…

Some photos taken by Alexander Mihalic during the 2013 final concert, in Milan :

During the concert :

Aurélien Dumont with his prize :

Not less than 5 activities have been supported by the ULYSSES Network (Organ Plus, A composers exchange program, the Disklavier PLUS project, the Roque Rivas project, Young ensembles in residency and the IEMA composition workshop 2013) and led to concerts that have been performed during the Gaudeamus Muziekweek 2013. 

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Question 1. The 2013 edition of the Gaudeamus Muziekweek was the 3rd edition organized in the City of Utrech, after a long tradition of the festival in Amsterdam. Which particular actions and conditions allowed you to take this challenge, especially in the actual context of budgetary restriction? Did the European support of the ULYSSES Network – brought in since 2012 – help towards this transition process? If yes, how? 

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At this occasion, the Mivos Quartet, described as an “accomplished, admirably broad-minded young string quartet” by the New York Times, performed the piece “Instant de Foudre” written by the young French composer Raphaël Languillat.

A great opportunity for the young artist to see his creation, already played in Paris during the 2012 ManiFeste Academy organised  IRCAM, performed again in front of the english audience, who was there in spite of the bad weather!

After a short presentation of the project and the artists in presence, Bill Lloyd, director of artist development in Aldeburgh Music, gave way to the performance.

More information about this event in our Timeline.

You can as well see all the photos of this concert on our Facebook page and listen to the concert recording on our Soundcloud Page

Let’s take this opportunity to travel and discover Aldeburgh Music, a place of energy and inspiration for music and the arts.

Founded in 1948 by the composer Benjamin Britten, the singer Peter Pears and the writer Eric Crozier, this place is world-renowned as an outstanding year-round performance centre, where artists at all stages of their career can be inspired and energized. With inspirational scenery, a rich musical heritage and the time and space for musicians and audience to discover, create and explore, Aldeburgh is the place to help artists reach their full potential and define their own musical landscape.

Find more information about this event here and here.

Antonio Pileggi, from the San Fedele Cultural Center’s  music department in Milan, reminisces about the last ULYSSES creation, performed two weeks ago at the San Fedele Auditorium (More information about this event here)

For 15 months, 11 young composers worked together on the Dante Divine Comedy, focusing on the idea of travel. 

Petrosino Silvano presented the Dante Project before the performance. Why did you choose a philosopher to make this introduction? 

A philosopher is different from a music specialist because he has more cross-disciplinary point of view; it is a good way to approach different aspects of the creation.

Moreover, the Divine Comedy is an existential journey where all human dimensions come into play,; it is about transformation, maturation. Fort the artists themselves, this project was, as well, a kind of journey.

You say that the 11 composers involved in the Dante Project worked together like a theatre troupe. Why? 

They worked together for 15 months so they had time to learn to know each other.

In the first phase, the necessity was to truly understand Dante’s text. Like for theatre, the composers had to develop an idea together in order to transform their individual understandings of the text into a common understanding. Roaming and travel was the starting point and the main axis from which the young composers’ works developed.

Throughout their journey, they were able to take advantage of support from different specialists. Their initial reflection phase was followed and accompanied by philosophers and anthropologists. Regular meetings were organized with a tutor and conferences-debates were organized with Divine Comedy literary specialists.

This common work carried out on the text over a period of time resembled the work of a theatre troupe.

During the Dante Project, when did the performers (Quartetto Prometeo) take part in the project? And how did this intervention influence the young composers’ work? 

We chose to involve the 4 performers during two distinc moments. The first of these two moments was in March 2012 and the second was just before the concert. These two sessions each lasted two days. The first session gave the composers a time to listen, adapt, and enjoy the presence of the performers and the tutor redirect of modify their compositional works. This time is important because it allows young composers to hear different points of view and advice that make it possible to take a step back and look at his or her work.

For this work, The Prometeo Quartetto was perfect because they are committed to working with young people and are used to doing follow up after a creation.

What does the future hold for the 11 young composers that had the opportunity to participate in the Dante Project? 

The Dante Project was part of a 3-year cycle. The 11 composers that participated this year were selected from last year’s 25 composers. We recently selected 6 composers from the 11 artists who participated to the Dante Project.

Pasquale Corrado, Aurélien Dumont, Evis Sammoutis, Antonin Servière, Franco Venturini and Vito Zuraj will work for this third and final year on the Chinese astrology thematic.