Gravity and Breathing as an Integrated Musical Frame
(2025)
author(s): Halym Kim
published in: Rhythmic Music Conservatory, Copenhagen
This artistic research explores a performance practice that integrates the phenomena of gravity and breathing as extensions of musical expression in improvisation. The aim is to develop a musical language that translates the qualities and characteristics of gravity and breath into sonic gestures, examining how they generate tension and release through both musical actions and silences.
The project draws inspiration from traditional Korean music and dance, in which an embodied awareness of gravity and breathing constitutes a foundational approach to performance and interpretation. These cultural references serve as a framework for rethinking musical practice and transcultural awareness. As part of the research process, I undertook studies in traditional Korean dance, the vocal tradition of Pansori, and the percussion instrument Soribuk to understand how gravity and breathing are communicated artistically, verbally, and methodologically across these three disciplines. Insights from this embodied practice were then translated into the context of Western contemporary improvisation.
The resulting concept is designed to enhance the performer’s awareness and is specifically conceived for a solo drum set context.
Unburying, from Liminals, Emerging: Three Contexts for a Microtonal Prepared Piano
(2025)
author(s): Matt Choboter
published in: Rhythmic Music Conservatory, Copenhagen
Can an acoustic grand piano be sonically and conceptually reimagined so as to re-negotiate its foundational assumptions around tuning and timbre? Why should the piano continue to be so accustomed to only one tuning system? In contrast, how can “pure sounds” (ratios found in the harmonic series) co-exist with ethnically diverse microtonal tunings?
Spanning a period from 2020-2022, “Unburying, from Liminals, Emerging” explores a microtonal prepared piano in three artistic contexts. These include: a solo project called “Postcards of Nostalgia; a chamber ensemble consisting of saxophone trio, percussion and piano; and a “percussion ensemble with soprano saxophone called Juniper Fuse.
Dialoging with a newly invented tuning system, what emergent properties might we find when magnetic piano preparations are used to evoke specific timbral effects from Balinese Gamelan and Indian Karnatik music? Collectively, how can this expanded notion of “piano” merge with spatialization to facilitate interactive experiences for audiences? How might a process-oriented Jungian-inspired dream work communicate itself so as to distill and coalesce a fertile musical landscape?
Ensemble & Ensemble of Me – What I Think About When I Think About Improvisation
(2024)
author(s): Ivar Grydeland
published in: Norwegian Academy of Music
This exposition is a copy of Ivar Grydeland's artistic research fellowship project (2011-2015) at The Norwegian Academy of Music, financed by The Norwegian Artistic Research Fellowship Programme. The exposition was redesigned within The Research Catalogue in 2024. The content is identical to the original documentation.
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Ensemble & Ensemble of Me is an artistic research fellowship project carried out at the Norwegian Academy of Music, as part of The Norwegian Artistic Research Fellowship Programme between 2011 and 2015. In this project I produced solo improvisations deriving from the music of two improvising ensembles to which I belong: Dans les arbres and Huntsville, and I produced collective improvisations with the ensembles.
The project’s key questions:
- What are my concepts when improvising with the ensembles and when improvising alone?
- How do the ensemble improvisations inform my solo improvisations?
- What do I think about when I think about our and my own improvisations?
The Haruki Murakami-paraphrase in the sub-heading indicates a process of on-going reflection upon what I regard as key aspects when I improvise. More specifically, what I regard as key aspects in the music of Dans les arbres and Huntsville, as well as for my own solo improvisations. These reflections reveal key aspects and main challenges that emerged during my attempts to create solo works informed by the ensembles. The reflections are chiefly documented in the form of a personal encyclopaedia. The encyclopaedia includes audio and visual examples, both from the final artistic results and from artistic activity during the project.
Rooms of Resonance
(2022)
author(s): Lars Greve
published in: Rhythmic Music Conservatory, Copenhagen
This is the final exposition for Lars Greves artistic research project "Rooms of Resonance" (2019-21), undertaken at the Rhythmic Conservatory in Copenhagen.
The project seeks to investigate the artistic potentials in Greves acoustic solo improvisations, the concert room's acoustics and selected objects, which are brought into vibration.
Through experiments and procedural concerts, the research has hoisted artistic, technological and methodological experiences which will be unfolded in this exposition.
Multilayeredness in Solo Performance
(2021)
author(s): Søren Kjærgaard
published in: Rhythmic Music Conservatory, Copenhagen
This project investigates the multilayered potentials of solo performance with the intention of opening up the single player limitations often experienced during the creative process of play and practice.
In performance contexts ranging from acoustic solo piano to a digital code-based video keyboard, concepts of multilayeredness are explored through compositional and improvisational strategies, that include instrument topography, extended piano techniques, audio-visual sampling and digital keyboard mapping.
The purpose is also to create results that will contribute to how solo artists across formats can express themselves more dynamically and with greater flexibility in the interaction between their various materials and artistic ideas. A contribution also in terms of expanding methodological approaches to how solo performers and research practitioners can work iteratively and interactively in their reflective processes, inviting both a more verbalised and dialogic form, and to explore ways of documenting and communicating these processes in hybrids between text, sound and image.
This is the final exposition for Lars Greves artistic research project "Rooms of Resonance" (2019-21), undertaken at the Rhythmic Conservatory in Copenhagen. The project seeks to investigate the artistic potentials in Greves acoustic solo improvisations, the concert room's acoustics and selected objects, which are brought into vibration. Through experiments and procedural concerts, the research has hoisted artistic, technological and methodological experiences which will be unfolded in this exposition.open exposition comments (0)