Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival 08.–18.09.10
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ULTIMA Oslo Contemporary Music Festival 08.– 18.09.10 Theme— CRAFTSMANSHIP IMPRINT ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ULTIMA’s members ULTIMA POSTAL AND VISITING Arts Council Norway Oslo Concert Hall BIT20 Ensemble Oslo Contemporary ADDRESS: Atelier Nord Parkteatret Black Box Theatre Music Festival ULTIMA Blå Réseau Varèse Department of Musicology, 08.–18.09.10 Oslo Contemporary Centre Culturel Français Riksscenen University of Oslo Music Festival Official festival Concerts Norway Tenso Days Henie Onstad Art Centre Kongens gate 4 magazine The Culture Fund The Royal Palace Music Information Centre 0153 Oslo Den Nye Opera Scandic Hotels Norway EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Norway Dramatikkens hus Sceneweb.no NICEM Lars Petter Hagen PHONE Drivhuset Soria Moria Restaurant Norwegian Academy of Music EDITOR (+47) 22 40 18 90 Embassy of the Netherlands The Øya Festival The Norwegian Ingrid Sande Larsen E-mail: [email protected] Fabrikken Chamber Orchestra HRH Crown Prince Haakon is Web: www.ultima.no Folkelarm The Norwegian National CONTRIBUTORS Royal Patron of the Ultima Gamle Logen Opera & Ballet Thomas Berg, Trude Elde, PRINT Festival Lars Mørch Finborud, UAB Logotipas, Vilnius, Goethe-Institut The Norwegian Radio Mari Iversen, Elisabeth Borud Lithuania Gyldendal Norsk Forlag Orchestra, NRK Leinslie, Anne Læhren, Institusjonen Fritt Ord, Norwegian Society This magazine has been Anne Hilde Neset, Erling Association of the Freedom of Composers published with support Sandmo, Lisa Marie Smiseth, of Expression Foundation The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir from Fritt Ord, Associa Anette Therese Pettersen, tion of the Freedom of Jazzmontør NOTAM — Norwegian Ingrid Røynesdal, Sara Wegge, Expression Foundation, Kafe Falsen Center for Technology in Marit Paasche, Magne Hegdal, Oslo. Kirkelig kulturverksted Music and Art Cathrine Nysæther. Litteraturhuset Ny Musikk (Norwegian PHOTOS Mnemosyne section of ISCM) Rune Kongsro Music Export Norway Oslo Cathedral Choir www.kongsro.com Ministry of Culture Oslo National Academy Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Arts CONCEPT & DESIGN NODE Oslo The City of Oslo Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra www.nodeoslo.com Månefisken Oslo Sinfonietta and Cikada NOTAM TRANSLATION The National Museum of Art, André Savik, Andrew Architechture and Design Smith, John Holten, The National Theatre Glen Farley The Norwegian Com- ADVERTISING poser’s Fund Torgny Amdam Norwegian Museum of Science, Technology and Medicine Scandic er stolt sponsor av ULTIMA 2010 – Oslo Contemporary Music Festival scandic – et smart valg for deg som skal ut å oppleve! Scandic er Nordens ledende hotellkjede med over 150 hoteller og nærmere 30 000 rom, i drift eller under utvikling i ti land. Du kan lese om våre spennende nyåpninger på scandichotels.no 04 Editorial 40 Lasse Thoresen 78 ULTIMA NOISE FEST CRAFTSMANSHIP A CONCERVATIVE 85 Oslo Philharmonic CULTURAL LEFTIST 06 Benedict Mason Orchestra FROM MAIN HALL TO 44 Das Beckwerk SHOTGUN TO THE HEAD BROOM CUPBORD THE SOUND OF THE 89 Arne Nordheim VOICE AND WORLD 10 Marina Rosenfeld A COMPOSER FILLED HISTORY TEENAGE RIOT WITH WONDER 49 Pierre Henry and 14 Essay 97 TENSO DAYS Bjørn Fongaard THEATRE CRAFTSMAN- ICONS TO A NEW 102 Maja Ratkje SHIP GENERATION MASSIVE, BEAUTIFUL 17 Ann Liv Young AND VIOLENT 53 Susanne Lundeng CINDERELLA 104 INSTALLATIONS IN BETWEEN FIDDLE 18 Verdensteatret AND VIOLIN 106 Eivind Buene THE NERVOUS ENGINEERS DIGGING DEEP 59 Espedal/Flink/Buene/ 23 Ensemble Mosaik Christensen 109 House of Drama WORK AND WORKING COMPOSITION AND FROM PSYCHOLOGY TOGETHER CRAFTSMANSHIP THROUGH IDEOLOGY 26 Sara Övinge & Ida Bryhn 61 PROGRAM TO APOCALYPSE PRACTICE MAKES SOME- 67 CONFERENCES AND 111 WHERE TEXT AND MUSIC THING NEW INSTALLATIONS MEETS THEATRE 30 Nevarez & Tevere 68 VENUES AND TICKETS 113 CLOSING PaRTY 1984 69 Essay 117 ENSEMBLE ERNST 34 Nils Henrik Asheim THE TIMELESS RADICAL- SCIENCE MuSEUM WHITE-OUT CONDITIONS NESS OF REICHA ARDITTI 38 Zeitkratzer 75 György Kurtág 118 LuNCH CONCERTS FREE RANGE FOLK MUSIC FRAGMENTS OF KAFKA BLÅROLLINGER Editorial— CRAFTSMANSHIP Ultima 2010 is all about craftsmanship. In his book The Craftsman, sociologist Richard Sennett writes that “craftsman- ship describes the basic human willing- ness to do a job well for the job’s own sake. The craftsman exemplifies the important quality of commitment. Good craftsmanship means developing skills and focusing on the work instead of ourselves”. By Lars Petter Hagen Man at work: Autodidact handyman and festival director Lars Petter Hagen Photo: Rune Kongsro 04 Recently we have seen a renewed interest in craftsmanship through the growth of art movements like DIY (Do it yourself) and craftivism. These do not focus on the traditional idea of solid craftsmanship but on the political, on independence through self-produc- tion, and as a counterweight to the demands of consumer culture to hire someone else to do the work. Knitting groups, for example, are on the rise in the United States (as they supposedly have always been in times when the country has been involved in ma- jor wars!). In an interview with the Norwegian magazine Billedkunst, American knitting activist Sabrina Gschwandtner says that she also regards the knitting wave as a reaction to digital communication technologies. “Knitting in a community brings people closer. It gives them the opportunity to do something together, slowly, face to face and in a physical room”. The DIY attitude in music is often linked to punk and other subcultural forms of expression, and to art movements like Futurism, Dadaism and Fluxus. At the moment, it looks like this attitude is finding its way back into the traditionally more academic field of contemporary music, maybe as a result of technological developments freeing the production and distribution of music from institutional and/or commercial middle- men and opening up the definition of quality in an interesting way. As musicians, we talk often and gladly about craftsmanship, whether it be number of rehearsal hours or studies in counterpoint. But in the complex musical reality of con- temporary music today, the concept of craftsmanship has various meanings in differ- ent aesthetic paradigms. When the performance artist Ann Liv Young sings in the Black Box theatre during this year’s festival, it sounds nothing like Salome Kammer’s inter- pretation of Kurtág at The National Opera & Ballet. Yet they both represent the best of performance craftsmanship in today’s art scene. It is in this diversity that Ultima 2010 finds its inspiration. At one end of this year’s programme we find choir music. Gregorian chants form one of the starting points for the entire Western classical music tradition. From here, notation and musical institutions developed and formed the backdrop for the academic form of contemporary music as we know it. At the other end we find the autodidact traditions, connected in Norway first to folk music but later also to much of modern electronic music including the noise music scene. And again, of course: both noise music and folk music have long ago entered the academies while a number of score composers like Giacinto Scelsi and Helmut Oehring regard themselves as self-taught. For Ultima, it is important to showcase the diversity in the work of today’s musicians and composers, simply because it is the sum of their artistic practises that defines and constantly re-defines the term “contemporary music”.T he complex reality of Oslo’s music scene at the moment, combined with the high quality of the results and open musical attitudes makes the city the object of international attention. The programme for this year tries to reflect this. You could say it is about rules or maybe the lack of them. It is about challenging tradition and convention so the music can develop even further, and continue to move us. Arne Nordheim passed away on June 7, 2010. More than anyone I have known, Arne dis- played a sincere curiosity and openness to new ideas and musical expressions. Though we have lost him he continues to put his mark on the Ultima festival. In its twentieth year the festival proves that there is still much to discover, if you take the time to listen. Lars Petter Hagen Director, Ultima 2010 05 Benedict Mason— FROM MAIN HALL TO BRooM CUPboARD Benedict Mason is known for going a bit further than others in deconstructing the orchestra and the concert hall. Oslo City Hall is his next inspiration. By Thomas Berg The whole house: Benedict Mason works with the Main Hall, the library and the broom cupboard in his work for Oslo City Hall. Photo: Rune Kongsro 06 WEDNESDay 08.09 – The piece starts outside the building and for those who are there at the time of the the audience will enter from the harbour performance. 19.00/ MuSIC FOR OSLO 20.30 CiTY HALL entrance. From there, I guess they will walk In addition, composers already work with Oslo City Hall towards the banquet hall. This depends on a huge number of limitations. Benedict Mason: Mason’s work when it’s completed. – Think about how much it takes to com- Music for Oslo City Hall Nora Ibsen is pulling the strings when pose for an orchestra. As a composer, you English composer Benedict Mason’s work need to know the highest pitch of a clarinet Brad Lubman, conductor for this year’s Ultima is composed especially and for how long a horn player can hold a Oslo Sinfonietta, for the City Hall building. Mason practices note. And historically speaking: for compos- Ensemble Allegria, Oslo Cathedral Choir the art of site-specific work: music written ers like Mozart and Haydn, there were no In collaboration with particularly for a certain building. He has cre- other options than performing a work at a Ny Musikk, Oslo ated such works for many varied locations specific site on a specific occasion, depend- Sinfonietta, Ensem- such as Miller Theatre in New York, for the ing on who had commissioned the work: ble Allegria, Oslo Cathedral Choir Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, Massachu- the church, a private citizen or others.