Around music #1 (2006)
for alto flute, trumpet, violoncello, percussion and piano
commissioned by Stichting Perpetuumm
Around music #2 (2006/rev. 2018)
for alto flute, electric guitar, cello, piano and percussion
new version commissioned by New Maker ensemble
“What is for the eye must not duplicate what is for the ear”
“The eye solicited alone makes the ear impatient, the ear solicited alone,
makes the eye impatient. Use these impatiences. ”.
Robert Bresson
Around music attempts to be a philosophical-humoristic reflection about the rituals of modern music and the concert situations. Actions related to the practice of music like counting, failing, facing technical difficulties, repeating or dropping instruments are the new musical material for this piece, written in a score.
Around music is music to be heard, music to be seen.
Program notes Around Music#2 by New Maker Ensemble (July 2019)
Terms such as “absolute music”, or “abstract music” can be seen as dialectical responses to major philosophical systems, which were influential in central Europe during the mid 19th century. Music – in these people’s minds – should therefore be an art form, free and independent from everything else. It should only respond to its own laws and, for bearing an essentially pure and formally perfect nature, any produced discourse would prove incorruptible.
The interest of any musician subscribing to this thought ghetto, should, above all, in the abatement and suppression of any noise, sonic and visual, but also semantic and political.
At the moment each piece finds itself realized, only that which most resembles the imagined formal ideal must survive! However, in each concert, there always happens a number of things which are not music in those terms. People have solely learned how to ignore them.
New Maker Ensemble, London July 2019
Sistema Project
If we think a system is a cohesive form of a group of inter-related elements, then, depending on the temporal and spatial framing, anything can be a system!
These types of considerations have been a focal point in the culture of production, conception and critique of the New Maker Ensemble. This time, Sistema (system) has served as a starting point for all the work developed in this project, from the new music program to the complementary educational activities.
The way we challenged the various creators, we also challenge you to think of systems: where are they? how are they created? how are they useful? how do they work? what do they tell us? how do they constitute themselves? what are they made of? how do they manifest themselves? what do they produce? how complex or simple are they? how do they evolve? what direction do they have? how are they part of us? what autonomy do they have? how are we part of them? etc.
Videos:
• Video Around music #1
• Video Around music #2
Press:
• Press – Ratatouille TV – Around music
• Press – Ratatouille TV – De metafysica van de humor
• Press – Het parool
• Press – NRC
Related works:
• Out loud – project page
• Gestalt (2014)
• Score Around music #1
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• Score Around music #2
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