Prompted by writers in the environmental humanities such as Donna Haraway, Anna Tsing and others, I will discuss how ecological ideas can offer speculative pathways to thinking about and worlding composition and music theory. This is a manoeuvre to reach beyond the epistemic zone in Western classical music theory where the use of stories is usually dismissed or devalued as ‘mere analogy’ and ‘mere programme music’. What might be thinkable, knowable and tellable through this speculative work? Where might an ecological consciousness take us as artists as we attend to the complexity of the world beyond the human? Using more unusual terms for work-processes, how might these ideas also inflect, disrupt, contaminate, reorder or enrich the nature of that music-making: how we work, with and for whom, with which resources and to what ends?
I will discuss work-in-progress from a collaboration with Swedish violinist Karin Hellqvist sharing a video of a conversation around the sketches for the work. Topics include embodied practices, memory imprints, ornamentation as desire and lure, repetition, ritual and the notation of textures of time.
video of the seminar in english vidéo du séminaire en français
Nicolas Donin
Addressing the ecological crisis within the subculture of new music: on compositional boldness and nuance
Just before the ongoing flood of new pieces explicitly referring to our ecological state of urgency, a handful of composers—from John L. Adams to Liza Lim— attempted to address ecological issues as the main ’theme’, or impetus, of some of their works. How did they manage to convey a sense of gravity and urgency while retaining a sense of ambiguity and complexity with respect to their musical language? I’d like to explore some cases of boldness and nuance in a selection of works from the years 2004-2018, and look forward to hearing from other pieces to discuss from the part of the attendants!
video of the seminar in english vidéo du séminaire en français
Discussion
Liza Lim (SCM, Australia)
Nicolas Donin (IRCAM, France)
Paula Molinari (UFMA, Brasil)
Jonatas Manzolli (UNICAMP, Brasil)
Valéria Bonafé (USP, Brasil)
Alejandro Reyna (UNL, Argentina)
Andre Luiz Gonçalves de Oliveira (UNICAMP, Brasil)
Andrea Cohen (Radio artist, France/Argentina)
Antoine Freychet (Paris8, France)
Cristina Palmese (PaisajeSensorial, Italia)
Denise Garcia (UNICAMP, Brasil)
Diego Makedonsky (UNTREF, Argentina)
Gabriel Gendín (UNN, Argentina)
Gonzalo Biffarela (CCEC, Argentina)
Gustavo Basso (UNL, Argentina)
Hildegard Westerkamp (Vancouver, Canada)
Janete El Haouli (UEL, Brasil)
José Augusto Mannis (UNICAMP, Brasil)
José Luis Carles (UAM, Espanha) - OK
Jose Manuel Berenguer (Sonoscop, Barcelona)
Karin Hellqvist (Violinist, Sweden)
Makis Solomos (Paris8, France)
Marisa Fonterrada (UNESP, Brasil)
Pierre Mariétan (RAME, Suisse)
Regina Porto (Unicamp, Brasil)
Ricardo Thomasi (USP, Brasil)
Roberto Barbanti (Paris 8, France)
Rodolfo Caesar (UFRJ, Brasil)
Silvio Ferraz (USP, Brasil)
Stéphan Schaub (UNICAMP, Brasil)