Spring Conference 2025

Like the titles of the two previous spring conferences of the Institut für Neue Musik und Musikerziehung Darmstadt (Rough Times, Artistically Intelligent), the conference topic zugehören (“belonging”) planned for 2025 also opens up a wide field of resonance. It suggests points of contact both within and outside of music: turned inward, the question of the legitimacy of compositional organisational principles can be asked, which, with every decision FOR formal processes and materials, inevitably also produce exclusions. Are poetologies that strive for immanent consistency and completeness still conceivable today, or should composers not be asking much more radically about contingency and openness, and in doing so also critically examine aesthetic ideals such as coherence or consistency?

Outside of specific musical contexts, the question of belonging touches on social issues whose explosive nature and current relevance can hardly be overstated. It is worth considering whether greater attention to social justice should also be formulated as a requirement for all those involved in contemporary music. The latter question touches on an interface between intra- and extra-musical aspects of the topic, for the processing of which practices such as community music or social composing have now been developed. Do these approaches make the idea of the autonomous and latently lonely artist a thing of the past? Or do they not describe individual protective spaces that need to be preserved at all costs?

This topic will be discussed at the conference in an interplay of concerts, scientific lectures and workshops. A key focus will be the encounter with composers/performers who, each in their own way, incorporate the challenges associated with the topic into their compositional work. The portrait of South Tyrolean composer Manuela Kerer presents an artist who, in an extremely unusual way in the field of New Music, repeatedly draws inspiration from the Alpine folk music of her homeland. In a series of cross-genre works, composer Hannes Seidl has repeatedly addressed questions of cultural and artistic identity. In the project Überläufer (a collaboration with students from the fields of music and scenography), the topics of migration and networking are combined into a sound-space composition that is in a state of constant change. Gabriel Dharmoo is a composer-performer who, in many of his works, deconstructs the idea of music as a unifying medium that inherently creates a sense of belonging. In his performance Anthropologies imaginaires, he draws on a wide range of vocal forms of expression from around the world and integrates them into imaginary folkloric contexts; this vocal kaleidoscope humorously questions the cultural appropriation mechanisms of a globalised world. The invitation of Śabdagatitāra is a special feature. This international network, recently initiated by curator/composer Sandeep Bhagwati, has set itself the task of exploring novel concepts of trans-traditional music-making. The musicians feel deeply connected by the fact that they all represent more than one tradition. The Ensemble in Residence, specially put together for us, will make the process of music creation comprehensible to the conference guests in open rehearsals and discussion formats.

The Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation supports the Spring Conference 2025.

Further information:
neue-musik.org

Dates

April 9 – 12, 2025
Various locations, Darmstadt