I HAVE THE MOON: aesthetics of contemporary classical music from a composer-performer band retreat.
(2024)
author(s): Samuel Penderbayne
published in: Research Catalogue
The artistic research project I HAVE THE MOON was an experimental group activity or 'band retreat' for five composer-performers resulting in a public performance in the aDevantgarde Festival, 2019, in Munich. Research was conducted around a central research question stated verbally at the outset of the project: how can aesthetic innovations of contemporary classical music be made accessible to audiences without specialist education or background via communicative techniques of other music genres? After a substantial verbal discussion and sessions of musical jamming, each member created an artistic response to the research question, in the form of a composition or comprovisation, which the group then premiered in the aDevantgarde Festival. The results of the discussion, artistic works and final performance (by means of a video documentation) were then analysed by the project leader and presented in this article. The artistic research position is defined a priori through the research question, during the artistic process in the form of note-taking and multimedial documentation, and a posteriori through a (novel) 'Workflow-Tool-Application Analysis' (WTAA). Together, a method of 'lingocentric intellectual scaffolding' on the emobided knowledge inside the creative process is proposed. Insofar as this embodied knowledge can be seen as a 'field' to be researched, the methodology is built on collaborative autoethnography, 'auto-', since the project leader took part in the artistic process, guiding it from within.
The Performer-Composer: A Practice in Interrelation
(2023)
author(s): Thomas Aurlund Lossius
published in: Research Catalogue
A simultaneous role of performer and composer is crucial in a vast number of artistic praxises. In this artistic research project, I explore creative possibilities the performing composer role offers. I also discuss how my performing composer praxis has inspired my interpretation of compositions by others.
The project is situated in my own artistic praxis and has an auto-hermeneutical approach. My primary method has been to compose music for myself and to perform it. This has led me to create compositions which are more improvisational, orally conveyed and open to diverse interpretations. I have also performed with a more co-creative, personally engaged and holistically oriented mindset. I have further experimented in performing compositions by others while imagining myself to be the composer. This has offered an alternative interpretative approach that resound deeply with me on an aesthetic level. Finally, I have reflected on how a performing composer discourse can unsettle the hierarchical language of composition and interpretation.
The project builds on a broader movement in artistic research and musicology, problematising the apparent dichotomy between composers and performers [Leech-Wilkinson, 2016; Cornish, 2015; Cook, 2013], and investigating the role of the performing composer or composing performer [Spears, 2022; Beaugeais, 2020; Groth, 2017]. The project constitutes my master thesis in performing music at the University of Bergen with specialisation in jazz .
Chamrosh
(2019)
author(s): Saman Samadi
published in: Research Catalogue
This exposition represents a collection of Saman Samadi's solo and chamber works for saxophone. The first four pieces were composed since the year 2015 during which the author explored various techniques to score timely structured improvisational compositions. That same year, these works were premiered by saxophonist Anthony Izzo, pianist Saman Samadi, and LX Saxophone Quartet in Brooklyn's Shapeshifter Lab as well as W10 Performing Arts Center. On the contrary, "Scheherazade", Saxophone Quartet No.2, composed in the Spring of 2017 and dedicated to Clémentine Scheherazade Samadi, was written through a precisely detailed fixed-notated score. This piece was commissioned and premiered by LX Saxophone Quartet at Lincoln Center NYC, on the day Scheherazade was born, the 22nd of June, 2017. On the 17th of July, 2017, the recording of this performance, and on the 7th of December 2018, an album consisting of the audio recordings of the compositions from 2015 have been published on digital music platforms.