Meditations on Listening, a creative exploration of the conductor's role and a development towards a post-conducting practice

Halldis Ronning

Halldis Rønning's artistic research contributes to the field of conducting, transdisciplinarity and listening practices. She seeks to open the traditional conductor's role towards co-creative practices and find new artistic expressions of conducting. Can conducting be conceptual art? Can it be performance or dance? How can it relate to visual art? Her motivation to open up the role is rooted in a wish to deepen her listening practice as a conductor. This deepening includes creative, spatial, embodied, visual, imaginary and relational listening. Listening as artistic quality and as artistic process. The work starts in the experimental art field and ends up in the Concert Hall with Stavanger Symphony Orchestra. There is a feministic context to the research and she touches upon topics such as mutual exchange, space to create, agency and control. But also the conducting body as an expression in itself, in relation to nature or an orchestra.

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Seeing the documentary Deep Listening - the Story of Pauline Oliveros (Weintraub 2023) had a huge impact on me. In the documentary there is a film clip (8mm) by Lynn Lonidier filming conductor Tom Nee in a toxido conducting on the beach in San Diego in the 70 ties.

Tom Nee (1920-2008) was a professor of music at the University of California, San Diego and performed many world premiers of music by his contemporary composers.

Screenshot from the movie Deep Listening - The story of Pauline Oliveros (Weintraub 2023)

Being Conducted By The Ocean

by Halldis Rønning and Eirik Aurlund Sæle, 2024

Sailing on the sound.

To receive, be one with.

Letting your self be moved.

Click the image to play video

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Being Conducted By The Ocean