We are looking forward to our next international Composer Collider Workshop coming up next week – “a time of learning, listening, experimentation, discussion and laughter”, as Johannes Schöllhorn describes these dialogues between young composers and the ensemble. This time we are happy to welcome students from Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln, Robert Schuman Hochschule Düsseldorf, from the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw, Folkwang Universität der Künste, and Hochschule für Musik Detmold.
Read this article by Johannes Schöllhorn, which was first published in our season brochure, to find out more:
“It’s common knowledge that nothing is the same after a collision. It can be dangerous, but if you are able to guide the collision in the right direction, the result can also be beautiful, surprising and rewarding for all those involved.
Collider – the reference to CERN in Geneva, where atoms are smashed into each other at high speed, is absolutely intentional – is a wonderful musical-research laboratory, where all participants profit in many ways from one another. Young composers from German conservatories – as well as already including conservatories from Poland and Chile – come up against Ensemble musikFabrik to try out their latest works, hear their musical ideas and explore sounds and forms. It’s a time of learning, listening, experimentation, discussion and laughter.
Mutual curiosity in the unknown of sound is what binds and drives everyone.
The entire process is documented during Composer Collider; the composers receive a recording of their pieces, occasionally resulting in a continuation of the collaboration between the composers and the ensemble. Composer Collider provides an ideal bridge for young composers from the conservatory into the “real” world of contemporary music. It’s an incredibly important moment on their artistic path and a vocational windfall. The Collider provides the ensemble with direct contact to the current young generation of composers and their new ideas, while the guest conductors benefit from the experience of being able to work with a world-class ensemble. Often open to the public, the Composer Collider brings composition classes of different conservatories together under the same common goal.
The responses from Collider participants are consistently positive. Personally, I’d like to yell “Eureka!“ as time and again new insights are opened and ideas turned into sound.
Nothing remains the same after a Composer Collider – what could possibly be better than that?”
Translation from German: Christine Chapman