After five productive years of founding the project, establishing its partnerships and constructing its pillars for a sustained future, RE:NEW MUSIC’s 90 new music projects will enfold throughout its 11 European countries over the next 17 months up until November 2010. The project’s 12 partner institutions – among them mica-music austria – have appointed 22 ensembles who again have nominated eight works each from their own national repertoire of living composers.
From this repertoire pool of a 176 high quality stamped works, the ensembles will choose pieces from outside their own country and build projects around them. Composers will be invited for short-term residencies, masterclasses, workshops and seminars will be held involving music academies and universities, web 2.0 features will be produced, strategies enhancing new audiences will be carried out, and the concerts will be produced in collaboration with a range of Europe’s leading international festivals and broadcast by a range of radio stations within the EBU-network.
In 2005, the idea leading to today’s vibrant network, was conceived by the Nordic Composers’ Council consisting of the Composer Societies in the five Nordic countries. Katrine Ganer Skaug, as the then general secretary for the council, set out on a European journey to establish long-term relationships with the partner institutions and ensembles while forming a working group to develop the project idea, structure and financial means.
At this early stage, SACEM in France, the PRS Foundation in the UK and the Flanders Music Centre together with the Nordic Composers’ Council got together to lay these grounds, and established contact to the European Music Office in Brussels, who joined the group as advisor related to the trans-European dimension and the possibility of seeking a collaboration within the EU culture programme.
An EU application was launched in October 2007 parallel to seeking funds from other national sources and on November 1 2008, the first two year RE:NEW MUSIC period with support from the EU Culture Programme was launched. After intense planning months of building this website, coordinating projects, establishing the contexts for the 90 new music projects involving the project’s partners, ensembles and composers plus a range of collaborators throughout Europe, here we are!
Sign up for the RE:NEW MUSIC Newsletter on www.renewmusic.org – And watch this space for further information, feeds from projects, blogs and debate on new music in general and the vibrant European scene in particular.
Let the journey begin…!
Beat Furrer – a portrait
As the very first project within RE:NEW MUSIC, the Danish festival SPOR presents an Afternoon Concert with music by the Austrian composer Beat Furrer. There will be an artist talk after the concert between Beat Furrer and the Danish composer Bent Sørensen as moderator. Furrer has been in Esbjerg taking part in the rehearsels with Esbjerg Ensemble.
The works to be performed are: LOTÓFAGOS I (2006) for soprano and double bass, XENOS 13′ (2008) for double-bass, clarinet and ensemble, ARIA (1998-99) for soprano and ensemble and STILL (1998) for ensemble. SPOR Festival is taking place in Århus, Denmark this weekend May 7 – 10. Musikhuset, Aarhus, Saturday, May 9 at 15.00. Visit www.sporfestival.dk
Monographie – Asbjørn Schaathun
The French ensemble Court-Circuit has fixed their attention on the Norwegian composer Asbjørn Schaathun. Together with Radio France the ensemble will present 5 pieces from the nordic composers hand. The piece “REQUIES” is chosen from the RE:NEW MUSIC work database, and submitted by Oslo Sinfonietta. Radio France, Paris, June 20, at 20:00 (Time to be confirmed). The details of the concert and the context around it will be given on the website very soon. Read more about Asbjørn Schaathun on www.schaathun.org
Peeking in the programnotes
There are good reasons to visit the database of RE:NEW MUSIC. One of them is the always neglected programnotes – there are stories to find in there – about what inspired the composer, about whats going on in the artistic process or attention to exciting effects in the music. Feel free to visit!
Peeks: “Ständchen is filled with what could be called effects (feet on pebbles, hands rubbed together, humming, use of percussion instruments) but which never should be grasped as effects, and are melted into the classical form – a serenade in (until now!) four movements.” – Ständchen, Bent Sørensen, Denmark.
“What started as a robbery gone wrong has ended in a murder – a murder that seems certain to force him to kill once more. And then kill again. “- Good Angel Bad Angel, Lyell Creswell, UK