SOUNDS OF CHANGE
EUROPEAN PROJECT (CREATIVE EUROPE - CULTURE)
2022 – 2026
ART BSA is a partner of the European Sounds of Change project from 2022.
Sounds of Change aims to promote art as a tool to encourage new generations to think about the future of Europe and to support the sustainable development of a society united in diversity, facing new concerns about sustainable urban and environmental planning. Participants and partner teams will understand the differences between European regions and focus on the many faces of European identity, active citizenship and a sense of belonging to a large European community with common goals and concerns. Art will be a dynamic tool for social transformation through interpersonal exchange, training and personal development. Participants will develop new musical compositions and create multidisciplinary performative outcomes that will add layers to the orchestral dimension.
The thematic focus is on the European dimension, environmental priorities (green planning/tourism) and social transformation through the arts, recognising European values and artistic work as tools for change.
The consortium from Portugal, Spain, Germany, Serbia and Slovenia was set up to achieve a transnational character and to pool the expertise of all partners. The newly established network will be dedicated to sharing knowledge and experience and will strive to create the best conditions for emerging artists in the orchestral environment.
ART BSA, the Slovenian partner of the Sounds of Change project, in collaboration with the European Career Centre for Artists Triple Bridge based in Ljubljana, is co-creating the Ljubljana International Orchestra's orchestral academy for the 2023 and 2025 cycles, as well as the 2022, 2023 and 2025 concert cycles.
MUSIC UP CLOSE NETWORK
EUROPEAN PROJECT (CREATIVE EUROPE - CULTURE)
2016 – 2019
MUSIC UP CLOSE NETWORK - connecting orchestral music with young audiences, is a multiannual project of European orchestras and international organisations for artistic mobility. It is designed to launch a long-term European cooperation network that will provide concrete answers to current challenges in the field of orchestral music. The project involves world-class orchestras, some of which have a strong reputation for delivering projects for young audiences and nurturing a new generation of talented musicians, and other orchestral partners who need to improve their activities in reaching out to young people, while at the same time fostering the creation of new orchestral works.
The project partners see MUSIC UP CLOSE NETWORK as a start-up organisation. Firstly, they would like to experiment within it and share new approaches and strategies for connecting orchestral music with young audiences, and then expand the network to new orchestra partners and other international organisations. To this end, the project will implement actions to address the following priorities: 1. Transnational mobility: promoting transnational circulation of artists and professionals in 12 European countries; commissioning and internationalising new orchestral works by living composers to promote intercultural dialogue, co-productions and concert tours in innovative formats with young orchestral ensembles and choirs. 2. Audience development: experimentation and dissemination of development strategies, in particular in cooperation with Balkan countries; production of concerts in innovative formats for young people, using cross-media tools to reach young and under-represented audiences. 3. Capacity building: training and education: strengthening of professionals with the competences and skills to work transnationally, in particular the promotion of a programme of exchange of work experience and the promotion of music residencies for orchestral training for young professional musicians.
CONNECTING WITH MUSIC AND THE MARIBOR INTERNATIONAL ORCHESTRA 2012
EUROPEAN PROJECT (CREATIVE EUROPE - CULTURE)
The project Connecting through Music with Maribor International Orchestra 2012 (MIO2012) is based on the educational project Maribor International Summer Music Seminar 2009 (organised by us), where a resident symphony orchestra with an international ensemble was part of the project or master class for orchestral conducting. This contributed to an even more lively dialogue among the participants on the valuation of the musical profession, exchange of experiences, debates on professional musical topics, not least art in a broader sense, and discussions on the living situations in the countries of the participating orchestras, on the possibilities of further education and on the possibilities of networking and making contacts, which is crucial for young musicians at the beginning of their professional careers.
The project was organised together with co-organisers from Slovenia (Kulturno društvo Glasbena matica Ljubljana), Serbia (Balkan Youth Association), Macedonia (Interkultura), the Czech Republic (Narodni divadlo) and the UK (Insider Communications/Nephew London), whose activities also seek to underline the need for continuous information, targeted education and the promotion of the musical arts as an important integration factor for young people.
The MIO2012 project was initiated and supported by the European Capital of Culture Maribor 2012 in order to continue the mission of bringing together young musicians and the performance of musical art with top soloists and conductors, thus strengthening the path of achieving the highest cultural goals in our region and more broadly across Europe and the world.
medinea
EUROPEAN PROJECT (CREATIVE EUROPE - CULTURE)
The MEDINEA (MEDiterranean INcubator of Emerging Artists) partnership project is led and founded by the Festival Aix-en-Provence. It supports the professional integration of young musicians from the Mediterranean, developing intercultural projects that promote dialogue, the transfer of results and the mobility of both around the Mediterranean. The network is made up of cultural organisations, the music sector, working on the dynamics of exchange and cooperation at international level. It includes higher education institutions, cultural centres, festivals and music markets. Our organisation and activities have been presented through partnership in all the music academies involved in the project.
OTTETTO (8 Swings for His Highness)
EN KNAP DANCE GROUP
OTTETTO's "Dance Concerto" (8 oscillations for His Highness) is based on Igor Stravinsky's Octet, a 16-minute treat from 1923, a purely structural composition without any narrative meaning, which the composer himself called "cold, transparent and spicy like extremely dry champagne". Iztok Kovac's OTTETTO choreographically disassembles, analyses and then reconstructs and visualises this extraordinary piece of music.
The author examines the Octet from different perspectives and explores the current attitudes of the artists involved towards this musical work. Thus, in the performance we experience the response of the conductor,
8 musicians,
5 dancers and
groups of visual artists.
Alongside the lively collaborative sequences, these different responses represent an extension of the expected performance of the original work, which now has an 8-part structure for 14 performers.
In the Octet, written as a classical sonata cycle for an unusual combination of wind and brass instruments, Stravinsky unexpectedly used the technical tools of Baroque and Classical music. The more modern harmonies and rhythmic complexity thus act as a strange effect in relation to the polyphonic technique and the chosen pre-Romantic form, and herald the beginning of the neoclassical period in the history of music.
The movement of the En Knap Dance Group dancers is characterised by a specific movement vocabulary, derived from the analysis of the score of the individual instruments in the Octet, which both emphasises and subverts the abstract structure of the Octet. The movement is repeatedly subjected to the strict periodic rhythm of the metronome, evoking the presence of the master. In OTTETTO, the Octet can metaphorically be seen as a musical work written by Igor Stravinsky for the theatre, though of course this was not the case.
Stravinsky's Octet, which in the composer's time was received with widespread disbelief and disapproval and perceived as a bad joke, is performed live in OTTETTO (8 Swings for His Highness) by an ensemble of Slovenian musicians from the Festine ensemble / Cultural Association BSA under the direction of conductor Živa Ploj Peršuh.
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