DARMSTADT SUMMER COURSE 14 – 28 JULY 2018 PREFACE 128 – 133 GREETINGS 134 – 135 COURSES 136 – 143 OPEN SPACE 144 – 145 AWARDS 146 – 147 DISCOURSE 148 – 151 DEFRAGMENTATION 152 – 165 FESTIVAL 166 – 235 TEXTS 236 – 247 TICKETS 248 For credits and imprint, please see the German part. For more information on the events, please see the daily programs or visit darmstaedter-ferienkurse.de CONTENTS A TEMPORARY This “something” is difficult to pin down, let alone plan, but can perhaps be hinted at in what we see as our central COMMUNITY concern: to form a temporary community, to try to bring together a great variety of people with the most varied Dr. Thomas Schäfer, Director of the International Music Institute Darmstadt (IMD) and Artistic Director of the Darmstadt Summer Course backgrounds and different types of prior knowledge, skills, expectations, experience and wishes for a very limited, yet Tradition has it that Plato bought the olive grove Akademos also very intense space of time. We hope to foster mutual around 387 BC and made it the first “philosophical garden”, understanding at the same time as inviting people to engage a place to hold a discussion forum for his many pupils. in vigorous debate. We are keener than ever to pursue a Intuitively, one imagines such a philosophical garden as discourse with an international community and discuss the follows: scholars and pupils, experts and interested parties, music and art of our time. We see mutual courtesy and fair connoisseurs and enthusiasts, universalists and specialists behavior towards one another as important, even fundamental come together in a particular place for a particular length preconditions for truly imbuing the spirit of such a temporary of time to exchange views, learn from one another, live and community with the necessary positive energy. work together — this Platonic Academy must have been So how can one describe the Darmstadt academy of a very inspiring event. At the same time, this philosophical 2018? Perhaps this would come closest: in the daytime, the garden marked the birth of the academy in its entirely campus and various venues in Darmstadt — the Schader- individual conception and self-conception beyond universities Forum, Edith-Stein-Schule, 806qm, the Makerspace and or other educational institutions. The academy — whether several public spaces in the city — transform into a giant think located in artistic or scientific fields — shaped a space of its tank, an impressive thinking and working space. Composition own: it is a temporary construct that frees up space rather and interpretation studios as well as more than thirty work- than simply occupying existing space. In a quite different shops on such diverse topics as artistic research, collective context, Hans Ulrich Obrist, one of the most renowned composition, music in the public space (Nature Theater of curators of our time, accentuated precisely this element of Darmstadt, Street Music, Invisible Inaudible), composing with free space in his lucid thoughts on the “non-conference”... the archive (of the Darmstadt Summer Course), improvisation I imagine the origins of the academy seen through and discourse (Salim’s Salon), dance & music, notation, as the eyes of today and observe that the core of the academy well as various projects that deal with instrument- specific idea — not the core of academic thought — ties in with our questions and the dialogue between performers and com- own ideas in central areas, for example to understand the posers, will unfold a veritable cosmos of contemporary music- Darmstadt Summer Course also and especially, as precisely making and music-thinking. such an academy and to give it a multi-faceted form. Our The degree to which the aesthetic discourse on this campus at the Lichtenbergschule and the Akademie für dyad of production and reflection is native to Darmstadt Tonkunst may not quite be an idyllic olive grove, but it is has been amply demonstrated not least by the past seven certainly the vibrant center of the course: for two weeks, decades and the important debates that have originated together with an artistic team of around 70 tutors, we wish here. Today, this discourse is naturally an elemental building to set up — in keeping with Obrist’s “non-conference” — a block of the Darmstadt academy. This year, with no less than free space for over 400 composers, performers, artists, dis- ten independent projects and a variety of individual events, cussants, interested parties and guests, to connect inter- this discursive side will be more manifold and concentrated PREFACE stices and build bridges in order to set something in motion. 130 / 131 than ever. Several day-long conferences (“Deconstructing the Avant-garde”, “Finding Democracy in Music”, “The Eth- all the problems we analyze simultaneously. Our fundamental ics of Critique”) will examine pressing questions both within commitment, in my understanding at least, is to show an and beyond music-specific discourses. An independent and attitude and to make a signal as a result of which change can prominent project within this year’s academy program will be be initiated on many different levels. “Defragmentation — ­Curating Contemporary Music”, which Naturally we want to bring the academy and the festi- will take place over four days (17 to 20 July). The idea for this val, the two pillars of our overall program, into close contact project, supported by the Federal Cultural Foundation, came here, which is why this year’s festival program features many about during the last Summer Course in 2016, when I invited works by female composers, some of them new, evening- Berno Odo Polzer (MaerzMusik), Lars Petter Hagen (then long pieces commissioned for the course. Christina Kubisch, Ultima Festival Oslo) and Björn Gottstein (Donaueschingen who turns 70 this year and first attended the course in the Festival) to an exchange of ideas. We soon realized that we 1970s, Celeste Oram, winner of the 2016 Kranichstein Music were preoccupied with similar questions and topics and Prize, Jessie Marino, Juliana Hodkinson, Clara Iannotta and would like to present these for discussion in a shared project Susanne Kirchmayr (Electric Indigo) took up our invitation beyond the individual institutions and festivals. “Defragmen- to write new works for the 2018 Darmstadt Summer Course. tation”, as we called our undertaking, sees itself quite explic- Éliane Radigue, the great French pioneer of electronic music, itly as a research project (running since 2017) that first of all will gift us with a new piece from her extensive OCCAM se- poses questions, also to us as festival-makers. One of the ries, excerpts from which will be presented by Dafne Vicente- primary issues is how to enduringly establish the debates Sandoval, Rhodri Davies, Robyn Hayward and Charles Curtis currently ongoing in many disciplines on gender & diversity, at the Church of St. Ludwig. We will experience the European decolonization and technological change in institutions of premiere of Liza Lim’s new work Atlas of the Sky and the cura- New Music, as well as discussing curatorial practices in this tor of this year’s Electronics Atelier, Susanne Kirchmayr, has area. We want to find out — together with artists, scholars invited three internationally-renowned female artists from the and curators — whether and under what conditions struc- experimental electronics scene to Darmstadt: Antye Greie- tural change is possible in our field. The four-day “Defrag- Ripatti, Sky Deep and Ryoko Akama. The transgender musi- mentation” program — with lectures, discussions, listening cian Terre Thaemlitz will be appearing in Darmstadt for the sessions and screenings — is extremely concentrated and we first time, as will the Viennese performance collective God’s hope that, with almost 50 international guests, it will create Entertainment, which, at the invitation of the Darmstadt a highly focused and stimulating situation in which we can Summer Course and Kampnagel Hamburg, will examine the learn from one another and open up a fruitful, wide-ranging ambiguous figure of Tarzan. God’s Entertainment, known for dialogue. As was demonstrated by the development of the their uncompromisingly open and decidedly political shows, grassroots initiative GRID (Gender Research in Darmstadt) in decolonize Tarzan, as it were, by taking the figure as “an ex- 2016, we seek to encourage, incorporate, support, moderate aggerated textbook example of white, heterosexual, imperial and comment on initiatives. masculinity” at the same time as a “utopian, civilization-crit- Structural change — in a festival, an institution, ical hybrid that unites and sublates the con tradictions be- a profession — cannot be achieved overnight, but should tween nature and culture”. Thus strong artistic positions will rather be conceived of in the middle and long term. For us reflect the diverse topics at the academy and open up new it will accompany the planning of the next editions of the discursive spaces. Summer Course. Nonetheless, we do not wish to overtax As with the four previous editions of the Summer PREFACE ourselves and “our” institution by feeling obliged to solve 132 / 133 Course since 2010 in which I have had the privilege of being artistic director, I once again feel a very strong need to thank (which fortunately doubled its support for this edition of the my teams for their wonderful, passionate work. Before I do Summer Course), the Jubilee Foundation of the Darmstadt so, however, I would like to express my special thanks