ultima contemporary 10–20 september 2014 music festival

the nation ultima academy / Marie Munroe & Panta Rei Danseteater: wednesday 10 september friday 12 september saturday 13 september The Concept of Nation Thomas Adès / Asbjørn Schaathun / thursday 18 september friday 19 september On the Outside Antonio Negri, Maja S. K. Ratkje 9 pm — Riksscenen 24 Book launch: Music after 22 July ultima academy Eivind Groven’s just intonation organ 12 pm — Cinemateket 3 Det Norske Kammerorkester Korp, korp Korp, korp New hybrid performance expressing 5 pm — Loftet 13 Scelsi Revisited + Anahit analysed nyMusikk’s Group with p 26 7 pm — Universitetets aula 28 10 am / 11 am — Dansens Hus 4 10 am / 11 am — Dansens Hus 4 the loneliness in togetherness A book on the importance of music 10 am — Loftet 13 specially written music for Groven’s New and old works in the spirit of (also 19 September) Interactive installation for little ones p 45 after 22 July 2011 p 16 famous self-built organ Christophe Meierhans: Beethoven Interactive installation for little ones (age 0–3) p 9 12 pm (bus from Youngstorget, Some Use For Your Broken Clay Pots p 30 (age 0–3) p 40 Avanti! Ensemble: HumppAvanti! at 11. 45 am) — Groven’s house 10 , 9 pm — Black Box Teater 2 p 40 11 pm — Vulkan Arena 29 Opening concert OSLO CULTURE NIGHT Ekebergvn 59 NB: limited space! Proposing a new constitution Helge Sten / Maja S. K. Ratkje / ultima academy Buenos Aires: Simon Finnish contemporary music group : Coro p 20 p 27 Kåre Kolberg: Eastern Waves ultima academy Utopian North Steen-Andersen, Neue Vocalsolisten, whoop it up, humppa-style with KORK / Det Norske Solistkor Bohman Brothers + 9 pm — Nasjonal Jazzscene 17 10 am — DogA 8 asamisimasa and Esteban Buch in con- Norwegian Disco Lovers (NDL) and 7:30 pm — Oslo Cathedral 22 Vilde&Inga Erik Dæhlin: Avstandsriss Report from Poland’s legendary Panel discussion with Nordic composers versation DJ Mette Monumental tapestry of folk music in 12 pm — nyMusikk 20 Ingfrid Breie Nyhus monday 15 september Warsaw electronic studio p 43 10 am — Loftet 13 p 49 Italian modernist fabric Lunch concert with the English 12 pm / 1 pm / 2 pm p 30 p 47 p 9 eccentrics and improv duo Vilde&Inga — Nasjonalbiblioteket 15 Ole Martin Huser-Olsen Electronic North II p 17 Folk music archive and concert 12 pm — nyMusikk 20 Risto Holopainen, Rikhardur H. ultima academy A Supranational saturday 20 september installation Free guitar lunch concert wednesday 17 september Fridriks­son, Thuridur Jonsdóttir Anthem: Beethoven’s Ninth thursday 11 september Ultima Remake: Coro p 21 p 28 1 pm — OCA 21 Esteban Buch Eivind Buene / Karin Rehnqvist / 4 pm — Café MESH 14 Korp, korp Free lunch concert with Nordic 1 pm — Loftet 13 Bent Sørensen ultima academy Ultima’s project for secondary school Bjørn Erik Haugen: Utterances Natasha Barrett: 10 am / 11 am — Dansens Hus 4 electronic music p 49 DR UnderholdningsOrkestret / Mattis Analysis of Kagel’s Exotica pupils. Includes launch of new Remake Nordic Voices OSSTS Oslo Sound Space (also 18 & 19 September) p 41 Herman Nyquist / Andrea Bræin Hovig 10 am — Loftet 13 Recorder app 3 pm — Kulturkirken Jakob 12 Transport System Interactive installation for little ones Øyvind Mæland / Johan Svensson / 2 pm — Universitetets aula 28 p 11 p 19 New work influenced by Julia Kristeva, 4 pm (age 0–3) ultima academy New music online Kai Duncan David / Lisa Streich World premiere of Buene’s new films with inarticulate speech and autism — Deichmanske hovedbibliotek 5 p 40 2.30 pm — OCA 21 Aksiom orchestral radio play­, and more ultima academy Othernesses: / Øyvind Mæland / p 21 Interactive sound composition Panel on contemporary music and 5 pm — Kulturkirken Jakob 12 p 50 Music in Contemporary Cairo André Jolivet / Asbjørn Schaathun presenting Oslo as you’ve never heard ultima academy Arv streaming with Music , Nordic Chamber music concert featuring 4 pm — Cinemateket 3 Håkon Austbø (piano) Robert Schumann: Dichterliebe it before Øyvind Torvund / Asbjørn Schaathun Playlist et al. young Nordic composers Verdensteatret: Bridge Over Mud p 11 5 pm — Nasjonalgalleriet 16 Bernhard Schütz / Reinhold Friedl p 29 Ingfrid Breie Nyhus (piano) p 41 p 47 2 pm — Henie Onstad Kunstsenter 11 A celebration of Austbø’s fifty years as 7 pm — Nationaltheatret 18 1 pm — Kulturkirken Jakob 12 (Also 21–28 September) Liza Lim / Henrik Hellstenius an active pianist Film and stage actor Bernhard Schütz Johannes Kreidler: Audioguide New music for piano, plus panel on EMS Anniversary Concert Verdensteatret: Bridge Over Mud New theatre work from internationally Cikada Ensemble p 16 and pianist Reinhold Friedl (Zeitkratzer) Ensemble neoN / Johannes Kreidler folk and modernity Hanna Hartmann / Erik Bünger 6 pm — Henie Onstad Kunstsenter 11 renowned ensemble 6 pm — Nasjonalgalleriet 16 update Schumann’s Romantic classic 6 pm — Dramatikkens hus 9 p 39 5 pm — Kulturkirken Jakob 12 (Also 20–28 September) p 46 Pan-cultural chamber music Horisonter p 22 Several hours of musical interrogation One of the most important nodes in New theatre work from internationally p 10 Eirik Raude / Arve Henriksen / Bjarne in a talkshow format New Music Incubator Oslo Reunion Scandinavian electronic music turns 50 renowned ensemble Djuro Zivkovic / Hikari Kiyama / Kvinnsland / Knut Bry / mmw arkitekter Laibach / : p 28 3 pm — Riksscenen 24 p 44 p 46 Morten Ladehoff / Sampo Haapamäki ultima academy Scelsi The Original 6 pm — DogA 8 Olav Tryggvason p 39 Ensemble Ernst 6 pm — Italian Culture Institute 7 Performance to open an installation Laibach Kjell Habbestad: Nenia Simon Steen-Andersen: Buenos Aires Anna Thorvaldsdottir / Simon Steen-­ 6 pm — Kulturkirken Jakob 12 Lecture and presentation of Klang­ inspired by Sverre Fehn’s architecture 10 pm — Sentrum Scene 25 7 pm — Musikk & Scenehuset 26 Electronic North I Neue Vocalsolisten / Andersen / Ørjan Matre / Malin Bång New works by Nordic composers forum Wien’s Scelsi Revisited concert p 19 Slovenian avant rockers complete Chamber opera in memoriam Ida Lundén / Maija Hynninen / Asamisimasa Oslo-Filharmonien p 53 p 13 Norway’s lost national opera Fartein Valen Osmo Tapio Räihälä 7.30 pm 7 pm — Oslo Konserthus 23 : Exotica p 23 p 29 6 pm — OCA 21 — Den Norske Opera & Ballett 6 Orchestral works from Iceland, Ultima Finale Scelsi Revisited Ensemble Modern Electronic music by Swedish and (also 19 September) Denmark, and Norway Ben Frost A U R O R A live / Georg Friedrich Haas, Tristan Murail, 8 pm — Riksscenen 24 Finnish composers Cultural collision as Scandinavia meets p 48 Karin Krog & John Surman / TCF / Ragnhild Berstad, Giacinto Scelsi Kagel’s modern classic, critiquing sunday 14 september tuesday 16 september p 40 Latin America in a new chamber opera Jeppe Just Instituttet Klangforum Wien Western music’s cultural dominance p 42 Simon Steen-Andersen: Buenos Aires 10 pm – 2 am — Vulkan Arena 29 8 pm — Kulturkirken Jakob 12 p 17 Ultima’s Children’s Day ultima academy The Case of Wagner: David Brynjar Franzson: Longitude Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart / Cool jazz, militant post-classical New works originating in the enigmatic 11 am – 4 pm Workshop on Music and Ethics Ensemble Adapter Marie Munroe & Panta Rei Danseteater: Asamisimasa electronica, barrel organs and 70s/80s ’s previously unheard sonic — Den Norske Opera & Ballett 6 10 am — Loftet 13 8 pm — Vulkan Arena 29 On the Outside 7. 30 pm synths sketches Jenny Hval & Susanna: We let kids take over the Opera House p 31 Opera about Iceland’s ‘dog-days 9 pm — Riksscenen 24 — Den Norske Opera & Ballett 6 p 54 p 12 Meshes of Voice for a whole day to create their own republic’ (Also 19 September) Cultural collision as Scandinavia meets 10 pm — Kulturkirken Jakob 12 music festival ultima academy Badiou’s Republic p 38 New hybrid performance expressing Latin America in a new chamber opera See also Ultima Festival’s programme Ensemble NING: Rikskonsert Critically acclaimed duo play concert p 26 Alain Badiou the loneliness in togetherness p 42 of films and installations 10 pm — Teatersalen, Bondeung- version of their collaborative project 2 pm — Loftet 13 p 45 p 55–56 domslaget i Oslo 27 p 18 p 31 An alternative national music canon PechaKucha: Løffler and Lisinski p 13 9 pm — Vulkan Arena 29 More information at ultima.no p 41 2 3

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N N 19 N ST. HANSHAUGEN 2 BLACK BOX TEATER 12 KULTURKIRKEN JAKOB 22 OSLO DOMKIRKE Marstrandgata 8, 0566 Oslo Hausmanns gate 14, 0182 Oslo Karl Johans gate 11, 0154 Oslo MAJORSTUEN blackbox.no jakob.no oslodomkirke.no T S L E 1 M D 3 13 23 A L CINEMATEKET LOFTET OSLO KONSERTHUS S V E IE Dronningens gate 16, 0105 Oslo Skippergata 22, 0153 Oslo Munkedamsveien 14, 0115 Oslo N 29 cinemateket.no sparebankstiftelsen.no/sentralen oslokonserthus.no VÅR FRELSERS GRAVLUND 4 4 DANSENS HUS 14 MESH 24 RIKSSCENEN

Møllerveien 2, 0182 Oslo Tordenskiolds gate 3, 0160 Oslo Trondheimsveien 2, 0560 Oslo 7 N EIE SV M H EI N A DH dansenshus.com meshnorway.com riksscenen.no IE U 24 N E S O V M TR K A 21 R N A N P A S 5 15 25 K G E A DEICHMANSKE BIBLIOTEK NASJONALBIBLIOTEKET SENTRUM SCENE R T E S E

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Ticket info Buy tickets from billettservice.no Full price and discounts (students, T: (+47) 815 33 133 elderly, unemployment etc.) are available. Pre-ordered tickets can be collected at the post office, ‘Post i butikk’, NB: Book early to avoid Narvesen, and 7Eleven. More info disappointment – performances www.ultima.no. can sell out fast. 4 editorial editorial 5 The nation: Who do you think you are?

and is one of the world’s oldest music Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival ULTIMA IS SUPPORTED BY: Official festival magazine festivals. At the very first ­festival, 10 – 20 September 2014 which took place in Copenhagen, conducted a work by Editor-in-chief: Edvard Grieg — with the composer Editors: Cathrine Nysæther and Rob Young himself in the audience. Eighty years Contributors: Henrik Beck (photos), Philip after the festival was arranged for Clark, Anne Hilde Neset, Audun Vinger, Roy Wilkinson, Ando Woltmann and Maren Ørstavik the first time, we are grateful that we, together with the Norwegian Society Design: NODE Oslo of Composers, can once again make www.nodeoslo.com Print: TS Trykk Oslo a focal point of what is currently a truly exciting Nordic contemporary ULTIMA OSLO CONTEMPORARY music scene. MUSIC FESTIVAL Address: Skippergata 22, 0154 Oslo On the opening day, the Norwe- Postal address: c/o Sentralen, Pb 183 Sentrum, gian Academy of Music will launch its 0102 Oslo, Norway essay collection Musikk etter 22. juli E-mail: [email protected] (Music after 22 July). As the editors This magazine is published with support write, it is a book ‘about powerful from Fritt Ord, Association of the Freedom of experiences related to music — experi­ ­Expression Foundation, Oslo ences that move us and nourish us, that unite or perturb us. It’s about music as a form of survival, in some cases quite literally: of young people fleeing from Utøya, singing together to find the strength to keep on swim- ming; it’s about acting through music as part of individual and collective His Royal Highness Crown Prince Haakon Lars Petter Hagen — Artistic Director, Ultima festival (Foto: Ultima / Henrik Beck) efforts to deal with the grief and to is the patron of Ultima move on; it’s about acknowledgement, faith in the future, and about exis- FIND US ONLINE ULTIMA ACADEMY 2014 www.ultima.no In partnership with the Norwegian Norwegian music history follows the and although this may at first seem nity, on borders and infinity. The tential dimensions of the interaction Facebook: www.facebook.com/ultimaoslo Academy of Music, the Oslo National development of Norway as a nation. as outdated as local issues, I would Ultima Festival is a forum for ideas in between music and human beings; it’s Twitter: @ultimaoslo Academy of the Arts, Litteraturhuset, In his book Med spark i gulvet og argue to the contrary: a universal music across disciplinary boundaries. about how music conveys the values Instagram: @ultimafestivalen NOTAM, Cinemateket, Italian Cultural Institute in Oslo and the University of quinter i bassen, Harald Herresthal issue that touches the core of making We are a meeting place, an arena for and ideals of society, but also about PROGRAMME ADVISORY BOARD Oslo — Institute of Musicology. describes how music was used as a music and of being an artist today dialogue. Through our subsidiary the place of music within the destruc- Per Boye Hansen, Anne Hilde Neset, national and political tool in the years is an attempt to understand who we programme Ultima Academy, we tive ideological ideas that formed the Thomas Schäfer and Mattis With WITH THE FRIENDLY SUPPORT OF: between 1770 and 1870. Music, art, are. It’s far from being a distinctly highlight the ideas behind the music, basis for the attacks that took place ULTIMA’S MEMBERS and language were key elements in Norwegian project. and this year Antonio Negri, Laibach on that dark Friday in Norway’s BIT20 Ensemble Black Box Teater the discussion about how Norway According to the African Ubuntu and Alain Badiou among others will history.’ The launch will be followed Den Norske Opera & Ballett could distinguish itself as an inde- philosophy, ‘You are who you are discuss topics such as power, ideology, by a performance in Oslo Cathedral of Det Norske Kammerorkester pendent nation. because of others.’ Music is strength- and cultural identity and how they Luciano Berio’s Coro, a work in which Det Norske Solistkor Henie Onstad kunstsenter Since then, being a composer in ened through its dependency on its are related to artistic practice. forty individual voices and instru- Institutt for musikkvitenskap, UiO Norway has also meant taking a posi- environment. This perspective is the We are delighted to be hosting ments fuse together a work inspired Kringkastingsorkestret, NRK tion on the meaning of ‘Norwegian’. starting point for the theme of this Nordic Music Days in cooperation by folk music and text fragments from Kunsthøgskolen i Oslo NICEM Discussions about national versus year’s Ultima. Reflections on identity, with the Norwegian Society of Com- around the world. Norges musikkhøgskole international and about tradition the function of music in a digitised, posers. Nordic Music Days has been A serious backdrop for this year’s Norsk Komponistforening versus modernity were highly rele- globalised, and individualised world; organised through cooperation be- Ultima Festival, because that’s how NOTAM nyMusikk vant in the years after World War II, reflections on tradition and moder- tween Nordic composers since 1888, important music is. Oslo Domkor Oslo-Filharmonien og Cikada 6 7

When did music first make a claim of ‘A national anthem is the mirror Berio creates a chaotic multi­plicity universality? For the answer, we can of a people’s character’, wrote Richard that mirrors the development of a The universal anthem look to the choice made by the Euro- Wagner in a moment of astonishing multicultural world metropolis such pean Union — then called the EEC wishful thinking. Of course, the music as São Paulo, Mexico City or Los — for its own European Anthem. of Wagner, along with Beethoven, Angeles, where planned grids dissolve The final movement of Beethoven’s was among the favourites of the Nazi into anarchic hinterlands. In amongst Symphony No 9, containing the choral regime, which appealed to the emo- setting of Schiller’s poetry that has tions of a mass audience via the grand ‘National anthems are more Rob Young investigates how contemporary music come to be known as the Ode To Joy, classical tradition and the spectacle is the official anthem of the EU in a of mythological opera. The first half than national anthems,’ has chased the dream of a universal sound. version recomposed by the German of the twentieth century saw com- said Stockhausen, ‘they are conductor Herbert von Karajan in posers of many nations — Vaughan “charged” with time, with the 1970s. Why wasn’t a new anthem Williams, Ives, Tveitt, Sibelius, Ravel, history — with past, present composed for this new coalition of Stravinsky, Albeniz, Villa Lobos, to countries? When various other nations name a few — striving to create their and future.’ turned to the classical tradition for an own national musics, beyond the off the peg national anthem, the selec- merely patriotic, that stirred deep and the hybridity, lines of Pablo Neruda’s tions tended to be rather bland pop- emotive connections with landscape, poetry drift in and out of focus, as ulist hits: Charpentier and fragments memory, folklore and literature. That if asking the question, how much of Handel’s Messiah, for instance, didn’t have to mean that the view- power can an individual voice hold In any land, when the national a trans-national anthem if ever there place, and a single spectral note could were among the early suggestions for point was narrowed. Ralph Vaughan on to among the chaos and noise of anthem comes on the radio, or is was one — to a worldwide audience wipe out the old divisions between the European project. ‘They were all Williams, an English socialist, the modern world? Through these played in public, everyone is expected of 400 million in a programme called ancient and modern, orient and typical examples of political music believed that a passion for one’s own dynamics of the single voice inside to stand, sing along, show respect. Our World. occident. His cosmic music reminds but without roots in history, and all culture was a necessary thing to bring (or against) the larger common voice, In this official setting, the national These are natural products of the the citizens of all nations that they of them set out to express a notion to the international table. Coro dramatises the key relationship anthem reveals the undemocratic side post-war radiophonic age, which also are also citizens of a single, spherical of a new identity in an old way,’ says But after the shock and awe of the between individual and state. of democracy: disapproving looks can produced the extraordinary music supra-nation, orbiting the sun. Esteban Buch in his book-length study second world war, music often turned be directed at those who don’t sing of Giacinto Scelsi. It is a ‘journey to of the ways in which Beethoven’s away from expressions of national ‘Give me your hearts / I’m ready / out, but freedom must also mean the an inaccessible place’ based on the From the 1950s into the sixties, the ninth, with its sentiments of universal mythology towards the idea of sound There’s only one direction / One aaaafreedom to refuse to join in. composer’s intensive concentration on ideas of universal harmony and po- brotherhood (‘Alle menschen werden that would harmonise the planetary world, one nation / Yeah, one vision…’ And so, as radio stations begin to the physical sensations, overtones and litical utopianism became even more Brüder’) has been appropriated by nation. When Slovenian group Laibach com- close down for the night, or to move closely linked in the arts. From Jasper competing factions over two centuries. ‘National anthems are more than mandeered Queen’s hit single ‘One to automated playlists, the national Scelsi’s music is a ‘journey to Johns’s abstract expressionist degra- ‘The paradox of the whole proceeding national anthems,’ said Stockhausen, Vision’ in 1987, they re­titled it ‘Geburt song marks the transition to a new dations of the US flag, to Buckminster resided in the fact that in building the ‘they are “charged” with time, with Einer Nation’ (‘Birth Of A Nation’). day. But what if something stranger, an inaccessible place’ based Fuller’s ‘Fuller Projection’ of the new, men were turning toward the history — with past, present and Slowing Queen’s original down to a more alien, emerged from the air- on the composer’s intensive earth’s land masses — part of the US old,’ Buch observes. future.’ A piece such as Hymnen was slug-paced crawl, they unpicked the waves? It might sound something like concentration on the physical architect’s vision of an ‘Operating only possible in the post-war age of fascistic fantasies at the song’s core, Hymnen, the massive electronic mon- sensations, overtones and Manual for Spaceship Earth’ — and Nevertheless, there is an appropri- musique concrète, collage, sound as while the renaming inevitably pointed tage of national and political music vibrations of a single note. a little later, Swedish artist Öyvind ateness in selecting a piece of late physical object, and in an age where to the DW Griffith film which so realised by Fahlström’s work with maps that Beethoven. By the time he composed music was mostly experienced in unashamedly celebrated the racism of in 1967. Hymnen expresses the idea drew on United Nations and other the ninth, Beethoven had conjured up recorded form. This allowed a long pre-civil rights America. As products that culture could overspill national vibrations of a single note. Scelsi him- data to show a world facing crisis. an idea of the ‘Empire of the Mind’, range perspective upon the world of the former communist Yugoslavia, borders and represent the collective self was both of the world and apart French musique concrète pioneer immersing himself in Immanuel of historical sound which informs Laibach have deep insight into the view of the citizens of the world, from it: an international traveller who Pierre Schaeffer worked towards his Kant’s Universal History of Nature Luciano Berio’s Coro, which takes the double edged nature of universalist and it arrived at the exact historical lived in London and before the ambitious theory of a solfège of And the Theory of the Heavens and folk and ethnic musics of many world propaganda when allied to savagely moment in which Marshall McLuhan war, stranded in peaceful Switzerland sound objects, an infinite lexicon of the writings of British orientalist tribes and cultures as its launch pad. repressive politics. was proposing the notion of the while it was raging. After the war, all available sounds. The multimedia William Jones, who was interested Coro, premiered in 1976 — the same A true citizen of the world rec- global village, and inter­planetary he described himself as a ‘messenger piece HPSCHD, by and in the all-encompassing energies of year the Voyager spacecraft blasted ognises no place and every place as space travel was looking like a genu- between two worlds’, sculpting ele- computer musician Lejaren Hiller, Brahma from his studies of ancient off with a golden record containing home. Works such as Mauricio Kagel’s ine possibility. Stockhausen appeared mental musical forms that eliminated sampled the NASA photographs that Indian texts. Closer to home, a greetings in fifty-five languages and Exotica, the omni-music of composer on the sleeve of ’ Sgt divisions between Western harmony were showing Earth dwellers their petition to the composer encouraging ninety minutes of music from Space- Liza Lim, or the omnivorously multi-­ Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Eastern modes, working in home planet from outside its borders him to perform his new symphony ship Earth — is based upon ‘a devel- national scenarios of Verdensteatret, in mid-1967, and shortly after its an apartment in , which he for the first time. In this utopian in his adopted country of Austria opment of folk techniques and modes are all products of the global village, release, the British group performed described as ‘the boundary between vision of Spaceship Earth, all citizens pleaded, ‘Beethoven’s name and his which are combined without any ref- a village that has swelled in the the first globally televised satellite East and West… it runs right here, had the right to take the controls. creations belong to all contemporane- erence to specific songs’, said the Ital- internet age to a town, a city, a gigan- broadcast in history, singing their through my drawing room’. His music ous humanity and every country that ian composer. Literally throwing its tic supra-nation of billions whose only aaaanew song ‘All You Need is Love’ — avoided being locked to a particular opens a sensitive heart to art…’ singers and instrumentalists together, borders are the rim of the planet. 8 wednesday 10 september wednesday 10 september 9

ultima academy: Luciano Berio’s Folk Odyssey Music after 22 July

techniques and modes which are com- bined without any reference to spe- Luciano Berio: Coro cific songs. It is the musical function KORK + Det Norske Solistkor of those techniques and modes that is Oslo domkirke continuously transformed in Coro.’ 7.30 pm On another occasion he com- mented: ‘It is like the plan for an 200,– / 150,– imaginary city which is realised on different levels, which produces, Italian modernist Luciano Berio’s assembles and unifies different things monumental work for choir and and persons, revealing their collective orchestra matches its pan-cultural and individual characters, their subject matter with a choral and distance, their relationships and con- orchestral setting of epic proportions. flicts within real and ideal borders.’ Berio (1925–2003) was closely We could easily replace ‘city’ with Book Launch: associated with the Novissimi literary ‘country’, and see Coro as an attempt Music after 22 July movement alongside Umberto Eco to imagine a hymn for mankind that Loftet and Italo Calvino. Their belief in would transcend political boundaries incorporating vernacular forms of while channelling historically deep 5 pm literature led Berio to write his first rooted social impulses and desires. RY Free music piece involving folkloric mate- rial, Folk Songs, for his wife, vocalist Produced in cooperation with KORK and The tragedy at the Labour party Cathy Berberian, in 1964. After a Det Norske Solistkor. youth camp at Utøya and in the development period lasting most of a centre of Oslo on 22 July 2011 decade, Coro was finally premiered placed Norway in mourning and in 1976. alerted the country to the dangers The massed forces of forty instru- of political extremism. Music ments and forty singers are paired played a cathartic role in the after- up and seated together during the math, and in Music after 22 July performance, entangling the vocal (edited by Jan Sverre Knudsen, textural elements in a way rarely at- Marie Strand Skånland and Gro tempted by any other piece of music. Trondalen, and published by Nor- The sung texts are an ‘anthology’, wegian Academy of Music, Centre as Berio put it, of folk musics and for Health), researchers from the songs drawn from ethnic cultures and fields of music, healthcare, media, societies all around the world on the literature and religion write about themes of love and work, from Native how music helped cope with grief Americans and Peruvian Indians to and anger, how it brought together Pacific Rim islanders, Yugoslavia and people and musicians from differ- street-cries of London. The line re- ent social and ethnic backgrounds, peatedly threaded through the work, as well as about its use in public ‘Come, see the blood in the streets’, and official ceremonies to express is taken from Pablo Neruda’s lengthy the vision of a more inclusive poem cycle Residencia En La Tierra society. (Residence On Earth). The book launch is in collabo- Without actually sampling folk ration with Centre for Music and material directly, Berio explained Health at Norwegian Academy that ‘there is a development of folk of Music. Luciano Berio 10 thursday 11 september thursday 11 september 11

ultima academy ultima academy Weaving Fictions Exotica Othernesses

there are far fewer women than men finding platforms for their creativ- Cikada Ensemble ity, imagination and artistry,’ Lim Exotica (lecture/workshop) Othernesses: Music in 6 pm explains. And what is her advice for Loftet Contemporary Cairo 150,– / 100,– young female composers today? ‘The 10 am (concert/panel) same as for any composer, which is to Free Cinemateket Liza Lim: Winding Bodies: really strive to craft something that is 4 pm 3 Knots authentically one’s own.’ Jörn Peter Hiekel, Ensemble The Norwegian composer Henrik Free The Heart’s Ear Modern, NAM students Hellstenius’s work Places Of Sounds Ramz Sabry Samy, Yara Philtre And Words, written for solo vocals Mekawei, Fady Galal, Joachim Henrik Hellstenius: Places Of and ensemble, will have its world pre- The 1972 Olympics — Kwetzinksy, Jörn Peter Hiekel Sounds And Words miere. Hellstenius’s works have been known as ‘the Happy Games’ performed several times at Ultima — were the first to be held in and Andreas Engström Cikada Ensemble in collaboration with ensembles such since the fall of the Nazi as Cikada, Oslo Sinfonietta, BIT20 regime. Seizing the chance to show 1 pm Yara Mekawei & Fady Elisabeth Holmertz (soloist) and Ensemble Court Circuit. His first the world a more democratic face, Galal: Peacock (live video & Christian Eggen (conductor) Liza Lim (Photo: Astrid Ackermann) opera, SERA, for which he was given the country commissioned artists electronics) the Edvard Award, was performed from all nations to create works for for the first time at Ultima in 1999. a parallel exhibition. One of those 1 .30 pm Ramz Sabry Samy: ‘Belonging and not-quite-belonging, holds power and who does not; how is Lim’s ties to Norway and Cikada His latest opera, OPHELIA: Death By was Mauricio Kagel, whose piece Akhenaten’s Last Papyruses or belonging in ways where you can that dynamic regulated, represented Ensemble go back to 1988 where Water Singing, which was composed Exotica critiqued the dominance of (Joachim Kwetzinsky, piano) see the gaps or multiplicity in identity and performed.’ she first met conductor Christian in collaboration with Cecilie Løveid, Western culture with characteristi- has been an important impulse in my Folklore is part of any country’s Eggen and Cikada’s pianist Kenneth premiered at Ultima in 2005. This cally subversive humour and irony: 2 pm Discussion artistic work,’ explains composer Liza sense of identity, so it seems prescient Karlsson at the ISCM festival in versatile composer has written music classically trained musicians are Lim about her relationship to ideas of that Lim has chosen to investigate one Hong Kong. The new piece is a work for chamber ensembles, orchestral required to grapple with unfamil- nationhood. Born in Australia to Chi- such narrative for Ultima’s commis- exploring frictions and tensions in works, opera, electroacoustic music iar, non-­European instruments. Ramz Sabry Samy composes nese parents — who were themselves sioned piece for Cikada Ensemble, materials — bow hair, strings and as well as for film, ballet, and theatre, Beginning with an analysis of orchestral, chamber and solo born in Brunei (where she spent parts Winding Bodies: 3 Knots. The piece air. By using the folktale as a fabric including first performances of plays Exotica, eminent musicologist Jörn instrumental works; Yara of her childhood) — she now lives in takes its starting point in an old for the composition, Lim is taking an by Jon Fosse. Peter Hiekel (Professor at Hoch- Mekawei and Fady Galal use Manchester and naturally has a mul- Nordic folk tale where one knot can be oblique view of Nordic conditions, Places Of Sounds And Words is schüle für Musik ) and per- video art, electronics and new tifaceted sense of home. ‘But I don’t untied to make a light breeze, a second with a more obviously Norwegian for vocalists, ensemble and sounds cussionist Rainer Römer (Ensemble media in social-minded projects. think this is particularly unusual in knot opened would cause a storm, and element through the inclusion of the from the ‘real’ world, familiar sounds Modern) talk about Kagel’s view Both live in Cairo and are active the times in which we live — a time the third knot must never be opened Hardanger in the ensemble. from urban landscapes, from parks, of music as realist art, and, more participants in the city’s cultural of great mobility and global flux,’ she — it holds a hurricane. ‘It’s an intrigu- Exclusion and inclusion are squares, stairways, conversations and generally, about the process of ac- life. As Swedish journal Nutida adds. ‘Cultural difference is an enor- ing story because it shows the magic not, course, terms only applicable arguments. Music, text and sounds culturation — the meeting between Musik launches a special Egypt mously political theme and I would of seemingly ordinary objects and how to nationhood but also to gender. of reality are combined to form two cultures and the experience edition, we have invited them, resist romantic notions of national or these everyday things are invested by Liza Lim is a non-white female in brief music-theatrical encounters of the Other — through music plus editor Andreas Engström and multicultural identity since that some- people with powers, stories and inten- the white male-dominated world of that touch on the subject of how we composition and performance. musicologist Jörn Peter Hiekel, to how tends to lead into compromising tions,’ explains Lim. ‘I’m interested in contemporary classical music. ‘I’m are present in the world yet do not The event includes a performance present their work and talk about positions where you have to ignore or ‘fictions of tradition’ because I find it aware that it would have been simply necessarily participate in it. Henrik workshop for musicians. the role of contemporary music in deny some pretty nasty parts of his- helpful to look at so-called tradition impossible for someone like myself to Hellstenius has written this piece Egypt. What does it mean to work tory — slavery, colonialism, genocide and what people do with ideas of con- have had any kind of artistic voice in for vocalist Elisabeth Holmertz and with art forms rooted in Western and other repressions, especially of tinuity and authenticity, seeing these music in the mid-twentieth century or Cikada. It also features video by På At all Ultima Academy tradition? Is colonial discourse indigenous peoples,’ she explains. ‘A things as performative impulses that even forty years ago; but purely from Peter Knutsen specially made for this events at our new Loftet space still present today, in what way, basic and ongoing challenge to narra- belong to a much wider framework of the point of view of representative first performance at Ultima.AHN (Skippergata 22), you can begin and how does it affect the arts? tives of nationalism as unity’ are facts cultural meaning-making and social expressions from across humankind, each festival day with coffee of inclusion and exclusion — who transformation.’ we’re really missing something when Produced by Cikada. In collaboration with Nasjonalmuseet for kunst, arkitektur og and a free lunch (yes, there is design such a thing)! 12 thursday 11 september thursday 11 september 13

En Rikskonsert (A National Concert) ultima academy Scelsi Revisited Scelsi The Original

Jenny Ondioline, an electric keyboard rendering Scelsi’s spontaneity. esting and potentially controversial. invented in 1941, and reel-to-reel tape Tristan Murail, one of the original Ensemble NING highlights some of Klangforum Wien recorders, the composer captured his French spectralists, knew Scelsi per- En Rikskonsert (WP) the modern-­day challenges connected Kulturkirken Jakob improvised keyboard playing on tapes sonally in the 1970s and his Il Sogno Ensemble NING to the relationship between the indi- 8 pm which he would then listen back to (The Dream) re-synthesizes one of the Teatersalen, Bondeungdomslaget vidual and society, between multicul- 200,– / 150,– and transcribe into work for orches- master’s old electronic tapes to make i Oslo turalism and national fellowship, and tras, chamber groups and solo instru- it ‘blossom and flourish’. between a free market and cultural 10 pm Georg Friedrich Haas: mentalists, as well as choral pieces. Cardinem, a new work by refinement. Composer Vieri Tosatti assisted him Norway’s Ragnhild Berstad, means 150,– / 100,– Riks­konsert is a mix of talk show, Introduktion und Transsonation with this monumental and complex ‘turning point’, and uses Scelsi’s concert causerie, and lectures, with Tristan Murail: Un Sogno task, but claimed after Scelsi’s death techniques of ‘twisting’ tones in its Ensemble NING present a Riks­ elements of archive material and cur- Ragnhild Berstad: Cardinem (WP) that he was in fact responsible for exploration of a robin’s birdsong. konsert — or national concert — rent politics — but first and foremost Giacinto Scelsi: Anahit more composerly input into certain Klangforum Wien are one of which embodies the spirit of musical it is, of course, a concert. pieces than he had previously been Europe’s leading contemporary fellowship in Norway in an age of given credit for. ensembles, and their unprecedented globalisation, self-realisation and Rikskonsert is a show made and performed by The music of Italian composer Whatever the truth of the matter, Giacinto Scelsi Revisited project commercialism. Ensemble NING.

Giacinto Scelsi (1905–88) is beyond it is Scelsi’s genius that is responsible offers a rare opportunity to encounter Challenges related to the nation Amund Sjøli Sveen, Erik Dæhlin, Tora Scelsi The Original (lecture) category within twentieth century for the overall working method which the intimate soundworld of a modern- state, globalisation and multicul- Ferner Lange, Ignas Krunglevicius, Alwynne classical music. Rejecting post-war produced such memorable and utterly ist legend. RY turalism are key issues today, both Pritchard, Kristin Norderval, Trond Rein- Italian Cultural Institute holdtsen, Gildas Le Pape, Vestre Aker musik- in favour of highly personal unique music. While Scelsi’s com- in Norway and around the world. korps, and more 6 pm sonic explorations, he created one of positions have become increasingly Klangforum Wien: Music defines identity, belonging, Free ’s rawest, most uncom- well known, studied and understood Johannes Kalitzke – conductor and distance, which is precisely what Supported by Arts Council Norway, Fond for Gunde Jäch-Micko – violin solo lyd og bilde, Det norske komponistfond. promising bodies of work. His music since his death, and particularly Vera Fischer – flutes makes a study of musical fellowship Alessandra Carlotta Pellegrino often involves rich, hovering clouds influential on the European spec- Zinajda Kodricˇ – flutes in contemporary Norway so inter- Produced in cooperation with Ensemble NING of textured sound that unfold at tralist movement, the original tapes Doris Nicoletti – flutes and Bondeungdomslaget. Reclusive and eccentric, Giacinto Markus Deuter – oboe, cor anglais the speed of continental drift — no — featuring improvisations, sketches Olivier Vivarès – clarinets Scelsi’s personal life was an wonder director Martin Scorsese used and experiments with electronic Bernhard Zachhuber – clarinets enigma. Alessandra Carlotta some of it to frame the menacing textures — always remained out of Gerald Preinfalk – saxophone Pellegrino, scientific director of Christoph Walder – horn atmospheres of his 2010 filmShutter hearing, guarded by the Scelsi Foun- Reinhard Zmölnig – horn the Fondazione Isabella Scelsi in Island. dation. Until now. Austrian ensemble Anders Nyqvist – trumpet Rome and editor of Scelsi’s auto­ Andreas Eberle – trombone Born into an aristocratic family, Klangforum Wien have been given Daniel Riegler – trombone biography, Sogno 101, ­lectures Scelsi lived the comfortable and access to the Scelsi audio archive Annette Bik – violin on the composer’s life, work glamorous life of an international and commissioned various living Uli Mertin – viola and legacy as an introduction Dimitrios Polisoidis – viola traveller and playboy Count. After composers to make new work based Benedikt Leitner – violoncello to Klangforum Wien’s Scelsi spending most of the second world on the fragments they found there. Andreas Lindenbaum – violoncello Revisited concert. war stranded in neutral Switzerland, The Scelsi Revisited project high- Nikolaus Feinig – double bass Uli Fussenegger – double bass he effectively disappeared for four lights three pieces created as part of Florian Müller – piano years after the war due to a mystery this programme, plus a performance Peter Böhm – sound design illness. Scelsi reputedly set himself of Scelsi’s riveting violin concerto Florian Bogner – sound design on the path of healing by listening Anahit (1965), subtitled Lyric Poem Klangforum Wien is kindly supported by repeatedly and hypercritically to the Dedicated To Venus. ERSTE BANK. overtones and microtones of a single Austrian spectralist Georg Supported by Komponistnes Vederlagsfond. piano note for hours at a time. Later, Friedrich Haas compares Scelsi’s in his apartment in Rome, he began intuitive tape-sketch method to assembling a collection of electronic Beethoven’s notebooks. Scored for instruments on which he pursued his seventeen instruments, Introduktion obsessions with the mystic resonances und Transsonation (2012) attempts to of drones and overtones. Using the find contemporary electronic ways of 14 15

though we, his audience, are observing Provocation is in the eyes, the Exotica spotlighted the possible everything through Beethoven’s eyes, ears and the mindset of the provoked. limitations of classical tradition by Provocative agents we never see the great man’s face. We Casual classical hangers-on — those embracing the big world outside. For can become familiar with Beethoven, whose listening begins with Vivaldi’s Kagel, testing time and place was we can enter his mind through his Four Seasons and ends with Barber’s typical: his Music for Renaissance music, but always there will be a part Adagio for Strings — might well find Instruments built lunar soundscape of him we can’t have; a part that will themselves provoked by the piss ’n’ sounds from obsolete instruments; Contemporary music has always had a healthy tradition of questioning forever remain faceless and marooned vinegar stentorian surface of Carter’s in St Bach Passion form met content in history. Yet as Beethoven walks music and therein lies that much as Bach narrated his own life story. tradition, and this year’s Ultima reflects that. Philip Clark looks at the into his music room for the first time heralded disconnect between modern In our own time, German composer festival’s subversive elements, from Mauricio Kagel to Johannes Kreidler. in two hundred years, we empathise composers and their audience, the Johannes Kreidler (born 1980) moves with his emotions. This sanctuary paradox being, of course, that Cart- those ideas a logical step beyond. where his creative spirit once ran riot er’s music was entirely accepting of The principle of authorial voice and is now a grimy cobweb-filled museum classical tradition. His music spun out control over text sits at the heart that is clearly on the brink of collapse. of Schoenberg and Webern, who were of Western tradition. In classical But new art emerges from the dust. themselves rooted in Brahms, Mozart music-speak, the score is ‘the music’, We don’t often look through the some weighty, even uncomfortable with ‘heritage’, a linguistic muddle Kagel’s Beethoven montage — the and Beethoven. He was systemically while reviews in classical music mag- eyes of a dead composer, especially questions about the nature of classical that the classical music establishment overlaps we hear between different incapable of writing an ill-behaved, azines strive to find the benchmark not at a reconstruction of their own tradition, exposing the necessary has been eager to embrace. Dead works are determined by the twists naughty piece that, as Kagel did performance of those tablets of stone. music room. But in 1970 Ludwig van tension that exists between composers German composers sell — even if and turns of a rostrum camera — can so often, questioned why the world When Kreidler accepted a Beethoven was brought back to life whose instinct is to ‘protect’ tradition, some of them happen to be Austrian be extracted as a standalone concert needed another string quartet or commission from the Berlin based in the year of his bicentenary by ren- and those, like Kagel, who believe — especially as myths about Beethov- hall piece. But within the context of orchestral piece. Ensemble Mosaik in 2009, he out- egade Buenos Aires-born composer that the most traditional thing about en’s deafness and Mozart being a step the film this fantasy music becomes a Provocation should not be sourced the job, trawling the internet Mauricio Kagel, whose satirical film tradition is the tradition of question- away from God himself have such commentary on Kagel’s underpinning confused with posturing. Erik Satie for composers and programmers Ludwig van was built around the ing tradition. good PR potential. philosophical themes. And when the and Morton Feldman provoked with in China and India who might be conceit that Beethoven had returned As acts of provocation go, Ludwig studio panel start to chew over those hushed opulence that challenged our willing to prostitute themselves by to Bonn to oversee his own birthday van is barbed and deadly. Kagel’s same themes, which were initially body clock’s sense of scale and pac- imitating Kreider’s style. The result celebrations. ‘People today fear the future and film obliges us to reconsider what spelled out through visual allusion, ing, the apparent gorgeousness of the was a piece, Fremdarbeit, for ensem- And, at the Beethovenhaus, some- so they flee backwards, hearing it is composers do, why they might and then through music, they become soundworld inviting you inside struc- ble, sampler and moderator. Unlike dhthing terrible happens. A meddling Beethoven and Mahler as an do it, and blows apart thedh apparent formalised in language. tures designed to disorientate and composers who unapologetically doorman fails to recognise Our Hero escape from today’s problems’ absurdity of using the apparatus and Ludwig van was a new kind of shift conventional ideas of structural ape the styles of totemic figures like and demands he pay an entrance customs of a three hundred year old piece altogether: an unclassifiable Feldman, Ligeti and Nancarrow, the fee — Beethoven is charged to enter a tradition to build art with contem- hybrid of film, music, satire and point could be pressed that at least museum celebrating his own genius. Right at the point where for- porary relevance. A fundamental documentary held together through ‘Tradition’ has become Kreidler is being upfront about what Now inside, though, we follow his merly fresh, malleable ideas solidify question immediately presents itself: persuasive argument, sheer wit and synonymous with ‘heritage’, some might consider opportunistic gaze as he walks into his music room, into what feels suspiciously like why is this composer choosing to not a little chutzpah. I sometimes a linguistic muddle that the cynicism. His new piece for Ultima, where surrounded by decomposing lazy orthodoxy, that is where such express his thoughts on Beethoven amuse myself with another decidedly classical music establishment has Audioguide, is described as a series of busts of his own image, a Beethoven­ composers, invariably termed agents through film? After all, in the popular Kagelesque fantasy: the most rebel- been eager to embrace. talk-shows about music, which puts ian montage is generated by musi- provocateurs, enfants terribles or imagination Beethoven represents lious, dastardly act ever perpetrated you in mind of like the final scene cians playing off fragmented scores iconoclasts, choose to intervene. the ultimate, superhuman composer by was his failure to of Ludvig van: ‘music theatre about draped around the room, sonatas The pop histories would have us and those who choose to follow in his return his copy of ’s markers; in our own time Christopher music,’ Kreidler tells us, ‘about its folded around concertos overlaid by believe that composers are either footsteps are supposed to cower at the Orchestration, the essential orchestral Fox and Gloria Coates similarly relationships to politics, psychology, symphonies and serenades, and then ‘traditional’ or ‘provocative’, a logic very mention of his name. But Kagel primer for every budding composer, override our expectations of what a technology and terrorism, with poetic fantasy slams into stark reality. that falls apart once the actual nature pricks that veneer of sentiment and to the New York City Public Library piece can be. Kagel’s Exotica unpicks Shakespeare motifs and Derrida During a mock-up of a late-night of tradition is examined. Helmut deification with his sly opening joke. on time. Doubtless I’m being unfair. the very foundations of instrumental thoughts in the background. The television arts discussion show, Kagel Lachenmann summed up the paradox Rather than following in Beethoven’s Elliott lived to be one hundred and technique, the tools that operate hypermodern state of the art is and his panel of guests mock the con- well: ‘People today fear the future footsteps, Kagel shows us Ludwig’s three — he must have had his racier classical performance. By requiring examined, subliminal messages are ductor Herbert von Karajan. His pal- and so they flee backwards, hearing footsteps. His dainty, buckled 18th moments. But the distinction between classically trained instrumentalists sent through music, instruments pable disdain for modern composition Beethoven and Mahler as an escape century shoes gingerly dismount Kagel, who looked inside tradition to play instruments from outside get destroyed, people fall into air and his obsession with manufacturing from today’s problems,’ he said the train at Bonn Station. And then to structure pieces as a commentary Western tradition, Kagel reminds us pianos, we’ll talk about the tragic a ‘beautiful’ orchestral sound leads during an interview in 2003,‘but this a moment of pure Monty Python on their own existence, and a figure that classical tradition can be crushed consequences of MP3 with one of its them to conclude that Karajan and music was written not to flee — it mischief: Beethoven walks into some like Carter, who wrote bespoke ret- by the weight of its own formality. programmers and we’ll built a hyper- the Berlin Philharmonic are inter- was written to awake!’ In English, at roadworks and we see his camp little ro-modernism to order, is well worth This piece, he says, ‘goes back to the instrument out of the hall.’ ested only in preserving culture: they least, there isn’t a word to convinc- feet hotfooting it over a fence. thinking about. In a festival that aims primeval origins of music making, All of which suggests provocation care little for the future. ingly define an artist on a mission to Forever the composer, Kagel cun- to unleash multiple forms of musical when singing was still at one with in music has little to do with how the A strand running through this advance the radical core of tradition. ningly underscores his narrative with provocation, Carter’s music simply making sound out of simple, everyday music actually sounds — it’s the ideas dhyear’s Ultima Festival throws up ‘Tradition’ has become synonymous an ambiguous sense of time.dh Even wouldn’t cut the mustard. objects.’ that count. 16 friday 12 september friday 12 september 17

ultima academy Lunch with the Scelsi Revisited Håkon Austbø: So near, so far Bohman Brothers A Celebration

by Grieg and other Norwegian com- posers, he has distinguished himself Scelsi Revisited (panel) plus Håkon Austbø (piano) internationally as an interpreter of Bohman Brothers Anahit: From Tape to Score Nasjonalgalleriet Messiaen, Scriabin and Debussy. Vilde&Inga (workshop) 5 pm This year Håkon Austbø cele- nyMusikk brates fifty years as a musician. In Loftet Free 1964, aged fifteen, he debuted with a 12 pm 10 am Free Arne Nordheim: Listen Ravel recital in the Aula, about which Free pianist and critic Reimar Riefling Øyvind Mæland: (new work) commented in VG: ‘He mastered London based Jonathan Bohman Klangforum Wien (Uli André Jolivet: Mana impressionism’s modern, refined fig- and Adam Bohman, aka The Fusseneger, Johannes Kalitzke Asbjørn Schaathun: Physis uration and harmonization with ease. Bohman Brothers, are known for and Sven Hartberger), Ragnhild Perhaps this is the field in which the their unique experimental sound Berstad, Emil Bernhardt, What makes a musician Norwegian? young pianist will find his powers?’ based live performances which use Håkon Austbø is one of those pia- He got that right, and more besides. found objects, text and an innu- Alessandra Carlotta Pellegrino nists we willingly highlight as one At that time he was billed as the boy merable array of sound sources. of Norway’s greats, but the truth is from . These days he’s the Their humorous visual set-ups, Giacinto Scelsi was deeply inter- that Austbø has lived most of his Norwegian international pianist. MØ resembling hardwired fleamarkets, ested in foreign cultures. An early life abroad — in France, the USA, are the basis from which the duo, perception of the microtonal qual- Germany and The Netherlands. As In collaboration with the National Museum of Sleeve of the original 1972 LP of Exotica on Deutsche Grammophon in the spirit of Fluxus, musique Art, Architecture and Design. ities of Egyptian music inspired well as being one of the most cele- concrète and sound poetry, create his developing philosophy of brated interpreters of piano repertoire cultures? Even the title becomes a their often grotesque soundscapes sound. He conceived of sound as a question. Is the music exotic from freely quoting from any source three-dimensional prism whose in- Mauricio Kagel: Exotica the point of view of Western culture, available to them. Found texts numerable planes are made visible Ensemble Modern or does the opposite apply: are the such as advertising spiel are juxta­ by the work of the composer. Riksscenen Western structures exotic for the non-­ posed with sounds ranging from In connection with Scelsi 8 pm Western collection of instruments? amplified shoe brushes to a tape Revisited, (see page 12), this At the same time the musicians cut-up of seventeenth-century conversation will seek connections Free are also challenged vocally and en- instruments. between Scelsi’s work and the new couraged to prioritise the voice above By exploring non-traditional pieces, technical and interpretation Mauricio Kagel’s own background the instrument whenever the exercise approaches to their instruments, challenges, and present Scelsi’s was highly diverse. Born in Argentina hits a conflict. In Western music Vilde Sandve Alnæs (violin) and archives in Rome. in 1931 to Jewish parents who had culture — unlike some others — pure Inga Margrete Aas (double bass) Plus: An analysis workshop, fled from Russia, and raised in instrumental music has achieved greatly expand their timbral led by project initiator Uli Fuss- Buenos Aires, he studied music, liter- the highest status, even though it’s palette. They are classically eneger and conductor Johannes ature and philosophy before moving really human song that is the one trained musicians from Norway, Kalitzke, will give composers and to Cologne as a student, where he common ground shared by every- but as the duo Vilde&Inga they musicians insight into Scelsi’s lived for the rest of his life. one. By prioritising the voice over are taking on free improvisation. Anahit (performed on Thursday Exotica was commissioned for the instruments, Kagel tries to go beyond Their debut was released 11 September): listening to tape Munich Olympic Games in 1972. It is exoticism, and looks back on music’s on ECM earlier this year, to great fragments, detecting them in the written for a range of ‘non-European true origins: the song. international acclaim. score, and understanding basic instruments’, which the ensemble of Ensemble Modern is an interna- composition techniques and Scel- six must manoeuvre between as best tionally recognised contemporary Produced by nyMusikk. si’s notation system. they can. For the listener the sound- ensemble, and has recorded music by scape poses questions: is this a parody Karlheinz Stockhausen, , of Asian, Arabic and African music? Heiner Goebbels and Hans Werner Or is it a genuine attempt to replicate Henze. They performed pieces by authentic fragments from multiple Frank Zappa at Ultima 2013. MØ Håkon Austbø (Foto: Ivan Tostrup) 18 friday 12 september friday 12 september 19

ultima remake Mythical beasts New horizons Coro

gradually melodies. The project has we were more like a shifting creature been released this autumn on with two voices.’ Jenny Hval & Susanna: SusannaSonata, Susanna’s own label. ‘I think we looked at Medusa, Ultima Remake (concert/sound Meshes Of Voice A kind of mythological mist Athena, and Harpy as examples of installation) Kulturkirken Jakob hangs over Meshes Of Voice, where ideas about woman, the ugly, the Café MESH 10 pm melodies glide in and out like ships divine, the horrific… Athena is the 4 pm passing in the night; they come goddess of reason, intelligence, art, 200,– / 150,– and go, are repeated and transformed, and literature. She also happens to be Free meet again, and slide away. The a virgin,’ explains Susanna. ‘I find the groundbreaking aspect of title references Maya Deren’s film, ‘I also remember that I had seen Remake is Ultima’s secondary surrealism liberating and fascinating, the surrealist masterpiece Meshes a picture of the mirror replacing the schools outreach project. Remake and I used this interlacing of ex- Of The Afternoon (1943), with its face when I studied film long ago, but presents a piece of music con- changes between Jenny and me to cyclical themes and powerful, surreal I didn’t know it was from Meshes Of sidered a ‘contemporary classic’, explore internal processes through images (such as the film’s recurring The Afternoon before I saw the film and through a mixture of careful bodily images, symbols from mythol- character, who is dressed in a black in 2008. So it was an image that had listening, reflection and creative ogy, and Gaudí’s undulating archi- cape and with a mirror for a face). made quite an impression,’ says Hval. analysis, explores how the social, tecture,’ says Susanna Wallumrød ‘I was really into mythological ‘A Mirror In My Mouth’, one of the political and artistic context in about Meshes Of Voice, a collaborative animals and female creatures at the album’s many highlights, repositions which the work was composed project with Jenny Hval which brings time,’ says Hval, ‘both because I the mirror in the mouth. Hval explains: relates to students’ own present together two of the strongest and most read a lot of mythological texts and ‘In the Meshes project it was only day experience and their artistic independent voices around today. because there is something myth- natural that the mirror was inside the understanding. Asked to write a piece for Lady­ ological about collaborating with mouth… after all, it’s from there we This year’s Remake work is fest 2009, the project began as an someone, especially vocally. We had reflect the world when we sing and Luciano Berio’s Coro (featured in exchange of letters in which the two to sing together. Susanna and Jenny write music.’ AHN Ultima’s opening concert on 10 artists used each other’s texts, and are neither the one nor the other; Horisonter performed by Eirik Raude, Arve Henriksen og Bjarne Kvinnsland (Photo: Knut Bry) September). Inspired by Berio’s folk music collage, participants An installation surrounded by sound will develop their own sample / and vision, derived from a series of folk music based installation, Eirik Raude / Arve Henriksen / concerts in 2013 in five buildings de- which will be presented alongside Bjarne Kvinnsland / signed by Sverre Fehn, one of Norway’s the launch of a specially designed Knut Bry / mmw arkitekter: most accomplished and renowned app for field recording, Remake architects. From within a spatial and Recorder, and Remake’s online Horisonter sound installation by audio artist sound map. DogA Bjarne Kvinnsland, and surrounded 6 pm by Knut Bry’s photographs of rural Participants: Students from the music Norway, trumpeter Arve Henriksen department of Manglerud Secondary Free School (MU2A/2B). and percussionist Eirik Raude can be heard performing improvisations in- With: Daniel Teige (sound scenography) / spired by Fehn’s structures, spaces and Heloisa Amaral (music) / Petr Svarovsky (app development) / Magnus Bugge his unique melding of modernism and (production) / Kristian Skaarbrevik landscape. The opening will be marked and Otto Graf (composition teachers, by a concert featuring those musicians ManglerudVGS.)

playing live in the installation. In collaboration with NOTAM. Supported by Sparebankstiftelsen DNB. In collaboration with DogA. Supported by Norsk kulturråd, Komponistfondet,­ MFOs vederlagsfond, Fond for Utøvende Kunstnere and Fond for Lyd og Bilde, EGD.

Jenny Hval & Susanna (Photo: Ultima / Henrik Beck) 20 saturday 13 september saturday 13 september 21 Eivind Groven’s organ house Distant traces Nordic utterances

Eivind Groven’s just intonation organ Guided tour and concert in Eivind Groven’s house, Ekebergveien 59 12 pm (Bus from Youngstorget, at 11:45, seating limited) Free Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi: Organic Encounters Karstein Djupdal: Ingfrid Breie Nyhus and Erik Groven spiller Jondølen Dæhlin: Avstandsriss Peter Edwards: Boulez National Library of Norway Agnes Pettersen: New work 12, 1 and 2 pm Eric Skytterholm Egan: New work Free Eivind Groven: Two organ pieces Vital organs: inside Eivind Groven’s instrument (Foto: Ultima / Henrik Beck) Film still from Utterances Sara Aimée Smiseth (organ) It is tempting to believe that Bach’s psychic disturbances’, according to Ingfrid Breie Nyhus and Erik Dæhlin as exhibiting regularly in his native great work The Well-Tempered Clavier, Groven himself, and he began develop- have spent the past few months Norway, he has had solo shows in with a preludes and fugue in every ing a system that could adjust a note’s working at the Norwegian Collection Bjørn Erik Haugen: Utterances the USA, Sweden and France, and key, marks a distinct advance in both tuning automatically, based on which- of Folk Music, listening to numerous (WP) has taken part in many group shows the instrument’s construction and the ever key you were in. In the organ recordings of Norwegian folk music Nordic Voices including Berlin Transmediale, problematics of tuning. It is written for house at Ekeberg can be found more of dating from 1910 to the present day. Kulturkirken Jakob Brazil’s Hipersonica, and Biennales the so-called tempered piano, in which Groven’s complex constructions, which By combing through the archive mate- in Poland, Romania and the UK. the octave is the only just-intoned allow the the thirty-six­ notes between rial — which constitutes thousands of 3 pm In 2012 he received a special men- interval, and the distance between the octaves to be adjusted automatically. hours of recordings — and examining 150,– / 100,– tion in the Digital Musics and Sound twelve notes of the octave have been It’s not perfect, but it’s a step closer to recording techniques, political and Art category at Prix Ars Electronica. adjusted so as to be virtually identical. just intonation, and attracted interest cultural ideas that have guided the How do you relate to and commu­ The six-piece group Nordic But not everyone would call it a from, among others, , archiving, and, not least, all the mu- nicate with your surroundings Voices are one of the leading inter- step forward. The tempered scale is Alois Hába and Arne Nordheim. sicians whose works are stored there, via utterances? Bjørn Erik Haugen national vocal groups. Formed in only one way of solving the problem: Tuning remains an issue for they have studied memory in the form expounds on this question in his 1996, they tackle a versatile range the natural tuning that sets the notes composers and musicians today, and of ‘frozen’ sound, time, and events. new work by, among other things, of musics from Lassus to Ligeti. of the scales in relation to the key at many have taken Groven’s ideas They particularly noted how encoun- using the transcription of an in- equal intervals is actually a pain to further. Musicologist David Code has tering the archived material creates terview with Julia Kristeva about use when you move further away from created a digital version of Groven’s musical trails and acoustic memories. linguistics, transcriptions of sounds the fundamental tone. To establish a machine, and NOTAM has developed By making new ‘notches’ in the mate- from twenty-eight films portraying new base note in an instrument in just a portable just intonation system for rial, a ‘live’ archive is created, which different emotions and situations intonation leads to murky frequency computer and sampler. This concert Breie Nyhus and Dæhlin reproduce, with inarticulate use of voice, and ratios and acid tones — and has cre- presents a selection of Groven’s own interpret, and play together with a third section based on a documen- ated headaches since ancient times. music, as well as works by several some of those musicians. This concert tary on how autistic people relate to Composer, musician, acoustician, frequency-sensitive composers from installation is an archive project at the the world around them by commu- collector and researcher Eivind Groven nyMusikk’s Composers Group. MØ Norwegian Folk Collection, National nicating with objects. (1901–77) was never satisfied with the Library of Norway. Bjørn Erik Haugen is an inter- inaccuracies of equal temperament. Produced by NOTAM in collaboration with media artist working with video, Placing equal distance between the nyMusikk’s komponistgruppe (NMK). Supported by Arts Council Norway and the music, sound and image. As well Norwegian Artistic Research Programme. notes ‘vulgarises music’ and ‘creates See also Ultima Academy: Arv (page 39). 22 saturday 13 september saturday 13 september 23 Schumann renewed Borders are in the mind

Laibach / Edvard Grieg Olav Tryggvason Laibach/NSK Sentrum Scene 1o pm 350,– / 250,–

More than a century separates the classic romanticism of Norway’s national composer and the bombastic provocations of Slovenia’s internation- ally notorious avant rock art collec- tive. But both, in very different ways, are linked through their concern with the problem of representing national consciousness through music. Specially commissioned by Ultima 2014, Laibach present their Laibach (Photo: Maja Slavec) unique intepretation of Grieg’s Reinhold Friedl and Bernhard Schütz opus 50, the unfinished operaOlav Tryggvason. Based on the writings him to the New World. He died in nationalism.­ By focusing their ener- of poet Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, who battle in the year 1000. gies on music, they have emerged into and has been a part of the standard and the modern artist are drawn, in turn drew on the medieval sagas The surviving fragments of Grieg’s a wider international consciousness repertoire of both musicians and and many questions emerge: What is of Snorri Sturluson, the opera was opera — which he abandoned in via record releases and live appear- Robert Schumann: Dichterliebe music theorists since it was published the work and what is interpretation? intended to recount the story of Olav 1873 — are set among the Vikings of ances, even if their ironic use of Bernhardt Schütz (voice), Reinhold in 1844. Who is the artist, and can it really be Tryggvason, the warrior king who Norway as they await King Olav’s fascist imagery and confrontational, Friedl (piano), Maximilian Brauer, Actor Bernhard Schütz and pianist that we can get closer to the music by ruled Norway at the turn of the first entrance to the pagan temple. The militaristic performances have often Fucking Famous Reinhold Friedl (Zeitkratzer) therefore doing something completely different millennium. As a young man Olav action is steeped in ritual, with rous- confused critics and listeners alike. have a long performance history with from what the composer himself made it his mission to wipe out pa- ing choruses, prayers to the Norse From their maximalist cover versions Nationaltheatret/Amfiscenen heavy traditions to contend with intended? MØ ganism from Scandinavia, after fight- gods, and a pagan prophetess con- of Opus’s ‘Live Is Life”, Queen’s “One 7 pm when they enter Romanticism’s inner ing on the side of the Holy Roman juring malevolent magic to persuade Vision” and The Beatles’ Let It Be 200,– / 150,– sanctum. Produced by Volksbühne am Rosa-­Luxemburg Emperor against the heathen peoples her tribe to defend their beliefs. Even album to the national anthem covers Schütz is best known to German Platz, Berlin. Dramaturgy: Henning Nass. of Denmark and Sweden. Returning these small passages contain savage on Volk (2006) and the brutalist Bach audiences as a respected actor in film from a long residence abroad in 995, and hair-raising­ music, with the third interpretations of Laibachkunstder- Dichterliebe, Robert Schumann and and theatre. He is no classical singer, he was crowned as king and began a approaching Wagnerian feverishness. fuge (2008), this is music that takes Heinrich Heine’s quintessential cycle but he lets rip on Schumann with an systematic programme of converting If completed, the work would have totalitarian ideologies so seriously of poems of the high Romantic era, actor’s urge to tell a story: convinc- the Norwegian people to Christi- claimed national opera status, but it that it tips over into total absurdity. has been recorded and performed ingly and full of expression. Now it is anity, often with the use of force. remains a little known curio among Laibach will present their take many times over the years with bel quiet and intimate, later it is explo- He thus had a significant impact Grieg’s œuvre. on Norway’s lost national opera as a canto and soft piano tone from the sively extrovert with a full band, and on the development of Norway as a Since their formation in Tito’s multimedia presentation, followed by opening to its final wunderschöne sounds more like expressive pop/rock nation, as well as founding the city Yugoslavia in 1980, Laibach and a concert featuring a selection tracks tones. The story of the poet who sits than a stylised classical masterpiece. of and building the land’s their dissident art collective NSK from the whole of their career, right alone in his study all day long, only With slightly untuned piano and oldest church. Eventually he baptised (Neue Slowenische Kunst) have been up to the album they released earlier able to meet his young faery love by aching, soaring vocals, the lines be- Leif Ericson, before the explorer responsible for some of the most this year, Spectre. RY night, is based on a poem by Heine, tween Schumann’s manic drug abuse embarked on the trip that would take extreme artistic representations of 24 saturday 13 september saturday 13 september 25

Grieg shares common ground identity’ is there in Laibach? citizenship is acquired through the with both composers. It was in 1876 We started very locally, in 1980, ownership of an NSK passport. Artists in uniform that Grieg attended the first complete in our hometown of Trbovlje. We We do not control the state, we invite performance of Wagner’s Ring. There had nothing but industrial sounds all citizens to create the substance of the can hardly be any doubt that this around, and that was our initial state by themselves. event left strong traces in Grieg’s mu- musical inspiration. Everything else Do Laibach have any thoughts Within Ultima’s 2014 theme of The Nation, it’s hard to imagine a more sic. Wagner’s own motives originate came later, in the context of an inter- here on the Norwegian nation — from Nordic mythology — the very national, digital world. its history, or its reality today? fitting presence than Laibach — Slovenia’s self-proclaimed same Nordic illusion of exclusiveness Laibach’s own work around the Great country, fascinating history, ‘monumental retro-avant-garde’ sound and vision collective. that Grieg himself was striving so theme of The Nation has been excellent music, literature and art, hard to give voice to. On the other fascinating. Can you give us an but like every other country it has a Roy Wilkinson hears their plans for a digitally disrupted version of hand, Grieg’s music was performed update on the NSK? dark side. In fact Norway is quite in 1906 on Thaddeus Cahill’s telhar- The NSK State was created in big on the dark side. But who are we Norway’s lost national opera. monium — the world’s first synthetic 1992, as a project from an organisation to judge? instrument. Grieg’s music is, like called Neue Slowenische Kunst, Are Laibach nationalists or Bach’s, very suitable for electronic which was built around Laibach when internationalists? Laibach formed in 1980 in the small Laibach’s version of Grieg is sure to Laibach deals with the inter­ performances. Laibach’s adaptation we were officially forbidden in the This is a tough question — Slovenia industrial town of Trbovlje in what ask fascinating questions — such dependence of ideology and art. Art of Olav Tryggvason will therefore be former Yugoslavia. Between 1990–92, is definitely the nation with the best is now Slovenia. Laibach’s early was certainly the case with Laibach’s and music are expressions of ideology; rooted in the digital domain, with out- with the political, ideological and location, and in this respect we are music was an austere industrial avant 2014 album Spectre, a work that fore- this is seen nowhere better than in bursts of electronically manipulated economic reorganisation of Europe hardcore nationalists. But because the garde, incorporating gramophones, grounds the phenomenon of whistle­ European classical music. Composers orchestral themes. There will also — the fall of the Berlin Wall and the country is so small, our nationalism electronics and homemade acoustic blowers such as Edward Snowden, devote their lives to studying the del- be relics of the most primitive and reunification of Germany, the decline is very small too. instruments. Later they included proving Laibach’s idealistic liberal icate rules of rhythm, harmony and primordial instruments: the voice and of the Eastern Bloc, war in Yugo- People sometimes have the idea visual references to the socialist real- credentials. . Then they craft their drums. slavia and the birth of new national that Laibach are obsessed with the ist styles that had surrounded them in For some, another question may music with the greatest care, only Does the the historical figure of entities — Neue Slowenische Kunst Nazis. To balance this, can you their youth, and also to what Laibach linger. Are Laibach fascists? It to fulfil the mission that ideology Olav Tryggvason, a king from reinvented itself, changing from an tell us the story of what happened describe as ‘Nazi-kunst’. There was seems fair to say the answer is no. has given them. The great Romantic Viking times, interest you? Could organisation into a state. when Laibach dressed in the two a brutally pragmatic approach to Would Nazi supremacists really find nationalistic composers — Grieg being Laibach be seen as Vikings of pop The reason for the creation of the different sets of military uniforms concert production — ex-army smoke perfection in Freddie Mercury, a gay one of the finest representatives — culture — ranging over the world NSK State was to keep utopia alive while promoting your WAT bombs instead of dry ice. drug fiend from Zanzibar? Laibach’s are among the most brilliant examples and taking ownership of various in a time of great expectations. NSK album? Laibach began to make a real ‘Kampf’ is part of something much of the phenomenon. Grieg struggled to sacred relics from pop history like confers the status of a state not to We are a bit obsessed by Nazis — international impact with their Opus larger — one of the most profound, develop an authentic Nordic tone, to Beatles and Queen songs? territory but to the mind, whose they had the best uniforms, designed Dei album (1987), which included a and profoundly entertaining agendas create music which would distinguish Laibach certainly are a kind of borders are in a state of flux. Besides by Hugo Boss. But we never wore version of Queen’s ‘One Vision’. This in popular culture today. itself from the dominant continental Vikings — not as Christian as Olav the members of the historic NSK, Nazi uniforms until 2003, when we was followed with further examples Here, Laibach talk about Grieg classical tradition. That he succeeded was, but still baptising anyone and thousands of people have NSK citi- were fed up with these accusations. of stylistic invasion and occupation — and their own career. The interview in that quest only by yielding to the anything that we come across.’ zenship around the world — people We decided to borrow fake Nazi a method they have applied to com- was conducted via email, with fundamental principles of musical Ultima’s theme this year is The of different religions, races, nation- uniforms from the film museum in positions by artists from The Rolling Laibach answering questions in a expression, such as the absolute dom­ Nation. How much ‘local musical alities, sexes and beliefs. The right to Zagreb. We then went ‘shopping’ and Stones and Serge Gainsbourg to Blind collective voice. inance of harmony, the tyrannical took photos in a mall in Ljubljana. Lemon Jefferson and Wagner. metrical scheme, etc, is a great source We also did photos dressed in Second Laibach’s take on Wagner came At Ultima this year you will of inspiration for Laibach, as well as World War American military under the wonderfully disruptive present a performance based on a great historical irony. uniforms. We sent photos from both title Volkswagner; they infused the Edvard Grieg’s unfinished opera Can you tell us about the nature sessions to the press, but the editors German composer’s music with Olav Tryggvason. How much were of your interpretation of Olav always published the ‘Nazi session’ the jazz styles that were banned as Laibach already aware of Grieg? Tryggvason? photos… This is the whole truth and ‘degenerate’ in Nazi Germany. But We were aware of Grieg, but only It should be read in context with nothing but the truth, so help us God! maybe Laibach’s most stunning super­ficially. We pretty much knew Laibach’s other adaptations of clas- Alongside the interpretation of cover version device came with the works that are generally known. sical works: Bach’s Die Kunst Der Olav Tryggvason at Ultima, you 2006’s Volk album — 14 reworkings Lars Petter Hagen, the artistic Fuge and Volkswagner. In Kunst Der are also playing another set of of ‘imperial’ national anthems and director of Ultima, first asked us to Fuge we used the computer as the more familiar Laibach music? national songs. Philosophically interpret Peer Gynt, but we avoid key instrument, thus emphasising the Yes, another set of music relating to potent and sonically gorgeous,Volk interpreting great works that have already complex mathematical our latest album Spectre, and some is perhaps the best point of entry for been covered by so many other artists. algorithms behind the original com- additional songs from the history of anyone new to Laibach. We asked Mr Hagen to suggest a less position. With Volkswagner we re- Laibach. What to expect? Expect And now, for Ultima, Laibach known but important work, so he contextualised the Teutonic nature of the unexpected! tackle Edvard Grieg’s unfinished had the idea to do Olav Tryggvason, Wagner — adding jazz rhythms and opera Olav Tryggvason (see page 23). which we knew very little about. some electronics. Laibach (Foto: Maja Slavec) 26 sunday 14 september sunday 14 september 27

ultima academy Some Use For Your Broken Clay Pots Kids take charge The Concept of Nation

the audience that his option is bet- ter than any other. As the audience The Concept of Nation Christophe Meierhans: questions and criticises him, more Cinemateket Some Use For Your Broken of the constitution is gradually 12 pm Clay Pots unveiled. Free Black Box Teater The piece takes its title from the ancient Greek notion of political 9 pm ostracism, in which the names of 12 pm Laibach / 150,– election candidates were inscribed Petr Svarovsky (discussion) on broken pot shards (ostraka) 2 pm Antonio Negri: A Revolt Developed in collaboration with a or oyster shells and drawn out at visuelle verk’ (Our visual works), Antonio Negri team of experts from Belgian uni- random. ‘Broken clay pots are the Norwegian National Opera That Never Ends (film) versities, Some Use For Your Broken considered useless, garbage,’ says Ultima’s Children’s Day Orchestra’s concert workshop with 3 pm Antonio Negri (lecture) Clay Pots is a theatre piece whose Meier­hans. ‘But we can actually The Norwegian National Opera a focus on music note pictures and script is the constitutional text for reuse them, just as we can recycle & Ballet pictures as notes. Slovenian collective Laibach Empire (2005), explains the spiritual a democratic state that does not yet the idea of positive disqualification. 11 am – 4 pm Pupils from cultural arts schools are an example of how artists and political construction of an exist. Like a work of speculative I want to devise an imaginary interacting with musicians from the can mobilise themselves to find ideology that prepared the ground fiction, this one-man performance constitution that is not based on Free Norwegian National Opera Orchestra, innovative methods of defying for democracy while at the same aims to give an insight into possible election — voting based on prom- opera singer Hege Høisæter, visual prevailing political ideologies. time endorsing power struggles and futures by providing us with the ises for the future — but on dis- Ultima takes over the Norwegian artist Helle Kaarem, composer Ole Formed in 1980 in Tito’s oppression. code underpinning the life of an qualification — elimination based National Opera & Ballet to stage Henrik Moe and workshop manager Yugo­slavia, the group soon Pre-Renaissance society was con- imagined society. on past actions. I hope it will reveal Ultima’s Children’s Day. Rooms for Jon Halvor Bjørnseth will be finding became known for their contro- trolled by the church and sub jugated Some Use For Your Broken that the real constitution we have concerts, rooms for work, and nooks out if it’s possible play and compose versial use of political symbols to natural laws. Reacting to this, Clay Pots is structured as a debate is also a fiction, an invention. It was and crannies both inside and outside music using symbols other than in cover versions of iconic rock, humanist thinkers such as Dante, between Swiss born, Brussels based constructed some time ago and is will be filled to the brim with exciting normal notes. They work together to pop and classical music. With a Galileo and Spinoza drew heavenly artist Christophe Meierhans and just a tool like any other.’ concerts, installations, and drop-in invent new symbols, new sounds, and strategy ‘to take the system more powers down to earth and advocated the audience about a proposal for a workshops for children and adults new pictures for the concert to be held seriously that it takes itself’, knowledge and human action. fictional constitution. He presents NB The performance lasts c. 90 minutes. In collaboration with Black Box Teater. of all ages. on Sunday at 3pm in Hall 2 of the they appropriate elements of Technology and the liberal arts be- elements of what that democratic How can a chest of drawers play Opera House. During this project we total­itarian political systems and came tools for bringing nature under system is, and attempts to convince music all by itself? What does a draw- will see examples of other composers dogmatic art movements, and, control, and the old theological state ing actually sound like? Can a game who have mixed images and notes as in a game of rock, paper, was gradually replaced by a secular of chess be transformed into a song? together in exciting ways to make scissors, juxtapose them in order society with spiritual foundations And what will the music festivals of graphic scores, and Hege Høisæther to reveal the emptiness of radical based on national identity. the future look like? will sing Stripsody by Cathy Berberian. ideologies. With their Ultima Negri’s rereading of history uncov- The answers to these questions commission — a version of ers the power structures that underpin can be found at Ultima’s Children’s Educational consultant: John Vinge. Grieg’s unfinished operaOlav contemporary global society and raise

Day, a mini-festival programmed In cooperation with the Norwegian National Tryggvason — as a starting point, questions about our own participation by a team of curators consisting of Opera & Ballet. Initiated with the support of the group will talk to media artist in the configuration of a new world children aged between seven and Sparebankstiftelsen DNB. Petr Svarovsky about how they order. twelve. Under the supervision of select the elements to construct musicians and producers, the children their audiovisual presence. have prepared a day that will inspire Retracing the origins of Euro- wonder and amazement and maybe Ultima’s Children’s Day is free pean nation states from the late challenge our thoughts about how and open to all ages. Middle Ages via their evolution to music should sound and how it should the present, philosopher, political be experienced. For full programme please visit theorist and activist Antonio Ultima’s Children’s Day will be ultima.no + Facebook. Negri, co-author of the acclaimed rounded off with a viewing of ‘Vårt Christophe Meierhans 28 monday 15 september monday 15 september 29

Guitar reinventions Natasha Barrett Lament for Audioguide OSSTS Fartein Valen

his own specifications. This was not just a way of saving labour time and Johannes Kreidler: money, but also a way of posing big Ole Martin Huser-Olsen Kjell Habbestad: Nenia Audioguide questions about the role of the com- nyMusikk Musikk & Scenehuset Ensemble neoN, Johannes Kreidler poser today, Third World exploitation 12 pm 7 pm Dramatikkens hus and — Kreidler’s particular hobby-­ Free 200,– / 150,– horse — digital copyright issues. 6 pm Kreidler’s new piece, Audioguide, is Charlotte Piene: Turn back to 100,– a marathon evening of talk shows. This Nenia borrows its title from one theatrical installation is not just a piece that point where (you think) you of the central orchestral pieces Imagine a series of live talk shows for the stage which includes music, but were that day by Fartein Valen, composed in about music and its relationship also a piece of music theatre about mu- Dagfinn Koch: Hud (WP) 1933. Nenia means ‘lament’ or Natasha Barrett: to politics, psychology, technology sic and music’s relationship to politics, Martin Rane Bauck: fretted with ‘commemoration song’, making it OSSTS (Oslo Sound Space and terrorism, with motifs from psychology, technology and terrorism. golden fire – 1. Sats(WP) a natural title for an opera com- Shakespeare and the deconstruction- Motifs from Shakespeare and Derrida’s Transport System) memorating him. The time frame Rainer Rubbert: ist theories of Jacques Derrida in the philosophy lurk in the background, Deichmanske hovedbibliotek is set over a single day during Aus Snowdens Zeit (WP) background. A ‘theatre installation’ while ultra-modern technology is ex- 4 pm the Second World War in 1943, with added video elements, and a amined, subliminal messages are trans- Simon Steen-Andersen: between winter and spring. Free music theatre about music. This is mitted through music, instruments are Beloved Brother We meet Valen and his sister Johannes Kreidler’s Audioguide­ : destroyed, a programmer speaks about Sigrid, whose simple everyday life a performance / installation / video the tragic results of the MP3 format, The Oslo Sound Space Transport soon is interrupted by the horrors art piece in which the state of the art and a hyperinstrument is constructed ‘We should not assume that we it is more an expression of a ‘longing System invites you to explore Oslo of war and their fear of the future, of music is held up for scrutiny. in the performance space. are eligible to live in our time for contemporariness’, which we like a 3D computer game. With its not to mention some haunting Johannes Kreidler has certainly Audioguide expands on Kreidler’s simply by being born into it,’ says could call this immediate relevance interactive form, the installation memories, from the Madagascar made a name for himself in recent earlier piece Feeds. Hören TV (2010), Ole Martin Huser-Olsen.­ ‘In his that is inherent in all great art, allows you to re-make the sound of his childhood to his time as years. Provocateur, agitator and enfant in which he produced an anarchic two- recently released memoirs, Dag regard­less of chronology,’ he says. of Oslo. As you move around a grown man living the life as a terrible are just a few of the labels he hour talk show in a television format. Solstad says that every cultured His quest is expressed in pieces the city, you can hear your own composer in Berlin. Images from has had slapped on him. Yet Kreidler Like any other talk show, Audioguide person must have a five-­hundred-­ by Martin Rane Bauck and Simon voice or other performed sounds the past intrude upon his daily is a modern composer who knows has its own host (Tammo Messow) and year perspective on contemporary Steen-Andersen, who rework mate- ‘activate’ Oslo’s real acoustic life, and the intimate and trivial how to place important musical, po- sidekick (Tom Pilath). More unusu- culture: two hundred years before rial from Shakespeare and Bach’s architecture. It may be a quite sur- stand up against the grand and litical and social issues on the agenda ally, it features its own psychologist his birth and two hundred years Capriccio in B flat major, respectively. real journey through a specially the unimaginable. through a language that makes sense (Andrea Seitz), coder (Peer Blank) and after. But that may be too short, Charlotte Piene and Dagfinn Koch made electroacoustic landscape He sees his past life, but also today. Much of his work has the kind two interpreters (Wieland Hoban and and maybe we’d do better to turn also touch on the relationship be- that you’ll be creating on the dreams of things he did not let of activist angle you might normally Philipp Blume). Felix Dreher provides to Goethe, who says that our tween the past and the present: Piene move. OSSTS’s travel guide, pro- into his life. We finally return to associate with the environmental sound and vision, and the talk show historical perspective should be at through her translation of a specific grammer and designer is British Valen’s everyday life in Valevåg. movement and other political groups. guests are Stefan Fricke and (natu- least three thousand years if we’re person’s actions in a period of time, composer Natasha Barrett, who The opera is composed by Johannes Kreidler is not afraid to rally) Johannes Kreidler himself. not to walk in the darkness of and Koch through his musical rendi- lives in Norway. Kjell Habbestad, but with a sub- adopt radical positions in the relation- Oslo based Ensemble neoN, with ignorance.’ tion of the poem entitled Hud. ject like Nenia’s, it is natural to let ship between music and art and their their innovative attitude to music, are It is this quest for his own time Ole Martin Huser-Olsen is a classi- Valen’s musical universe resonate, socio-political impact. An example is attracting increasing attention inter­ that Huser-Olsen places at the cal guitarist trained at the Norwegian as a reminder and a tribute. the work Fremdarbeit für vier Instru- nationally: Karin Hellqvist, Yumi centre of this guitar recital. Based Academy of Music who performs mente und Moderator (Foreign Work Murakami, Heloisa Amaral, Kristine on his first performance of Rainer music from the Renaissance to newly Libretto: Paal-Helge Haugen For Four Instruments and Moderator), Tjøgersen, Ane Marthe Sørlien Holen Rubbert’s work Aus Snowdens composed contemporary music. He Director: Mira Bartov Producer: Gjøril Songvoll which was performed at Ultima in and Inga Byrkjeland. AW Zeit (From The Age Of Snowden), made his orchestral debut as a soloist Ensemble directed by Magnus Loddgard 2010 and attracted considerable atten- he draws on the artist’s longing to in 2012, and performs chamber music tion for its musical ‘outsourcing’. For Co-produced by Darmstädter Ferienkurse für meet the spirit of the age. with Ensemble Ernst and Ensemble a tiny fee, Kreidler paid a Chinese and Neue Musik, Ultima Oslo and Fonds experi- ‘The title is therefore not only Aksiom, among others. MØ mentelles Musiktheater NRW. an Indian composer to write music to Supported by Arts Council Norway. an allusion to Edward Snowden, In collaboration with nyMusikk. 30 tuesday 16 september tuesday 16 september 31

In Beethoven’s shadow Polish sound ultima academy ultima academy waves The Case of Badiou’s Republic Wagner

Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje is one of Norway’s leading contempo- Maja S. K. Ratkje / Helge Sten / rary composers and performers. Her The Case of Wagner: The Republic Of Plato / Kåre Kolberg Eastern Waves music has been performed worldwide Workshop on Music and Ethics Inæsthetics (reading session/ Maja S. K. Ratkje / Helge Sten by ensembles and musicians such as Loftet lecture) Nasjonal jazzscene Klangforum Wien, The Norwegian 10 am Loftet Radio Orchestra, BBC Scottish 9 pm Symphony Orchestra, Fretwork and Free 2 pm 150,– / 100,– . In 2001 she was the Free first composer ever to receive the Alain Badiou and Nanette Kåre Kolberg: Omgivelser Norwegian Arne Nordheim prize. Nielsen Alain Badiou, theatre students Helge Sten: Monochrome Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje from Oslo National Academy : Dialogue With has performed her own music for How and when can music play of Arts Rudnik – Concert Version films, radio play, dance and theatre, a part in radical social change? Anthony Marwood (Photo: Pia Johnson) installations, and numerous other Building on the chapter ‘Dis- projects. In 2013 she was nominated course’ from music philosopher In The Republic, Plato discusses Anthony Marwood is what you might Studio Experymentalne in for the Nordic Council Music Prize Nanette Nielsen’s Music And the genesis of the ideal state. call a total violinist: a brilliant soloist, Warsaw was the ‘office’ for Arne as performer. Ethics, the workshop will explore Together with theatre students, In Beethoven’s Shadow a fine chamber musician and one of Nordheim, Kåre Kolberg and Helge Sten, best known by his the extent to which French Alain Badiou reads and comments Det Norske Kammerorkester the few who masters the function of many other sonic experimentalists Deathprod alias, is a musician and philosopher Alain Badiou’s own on excerpts from his book The University Aula a performing leader. Here he takes in the 1960s and seventies. Some producer with connections to various work on Wagner involves ethical Republic Of Plato, in which he 7 pm on all of these roles in a programme of their best known music from band projects including Motorpsycho engagement. What are the ethical proposes a new interpretation of comprising the old and new. The that period was created in the and Supersilent. He makes music ramifications of Badiou’s reading Plato’s work from a contemporary 395,– / 120,– Norsk Kammerorkester have invited legendary Polish studio. which falls at the intersection of of Wagner? How do music and perspective. two Norwegian composers in each Eastern Waves sheds light on noise, jazz, modern composition, elec- ethics interact? Afterwards, Badiou discusses Maja Ratkje: Tale Of Lead And generation to write music for them the studio’s electronic legacy with tronica and rock, but he is most often the role and ethics of art in con- Frozen Light (WP) with Beethoven’s late string quartets commissioned works by Helge described as a noise artist. Deathprod In collaboration with the University of temporary society and introduces Ludwig van Beethoven: String as the foundation. Both Maja Ratkje ‘Deathprod’ Sten and Maja S. K. has released a string of recordings Oslo’s Institute of Musicology. the notion of ‘inaesthetics’. With Quartets op. 127 & op. 135 and Asbjørn Schaathun took on Ratkje. Ratkje’s work In Dialogue and is much in demand as a producer. this concept, Badiou distances (selected movements) this challenge with their shared With Rudnik is inspired by the himself from traditional didactic, fascination for this old but eternally Polish electronic music pioneer The concert is a cooperation between Ultima, therapeutic or hermeneutic ap- Asbjørn Schaathun: Beethoven fascinating material. Eugeniusz Rudnik, who was Nasjonal Jazzscene, Stiftelsen 4.99, Bolt proaches, and delineates an alter- Records and NOTAM. Singt (Beethoven Sings) (WP) Marwood will be the soloist in the Nordheim’s technician in Warsaw. native mode of thinking about art Thomas Adès: Violin Concerto last part of the concert playing the In the live version, Ratkje plays and philosophy. Violin Concerto by Thomas Adès. together with Rudnik’s music. Works by the winner of At the age of forty-three Adès has Sten’s composition is based on re- In collaboration with Oslo National Academy of the Arts. Nordheim’s Composer Prize 2014 already received commissions from cordings of two of the Polish radio the Metropolitan Opera, premieres studio’s other pioneers: Bohdan Det Norske Kammerorkester / with Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra Mazurek and Tomasz Sikorski. På At all Ultima Academy Anthony Marwood (violin) / and conducted many of the world’s events at our new Loftet space Christian Eggen (conductor) leading orchestras. This concerto was first performed by Marwood at the (Skippergata 22), you can begin BBC Proms in 2005. each festival day with coffee The concert will also feature the and a free lunch (yes, there is announcement of the winner of Arne Nordheim’s Composer Prize 2014 such a thing)! and work by the winner.

Produced by Det Norske Kammerorkester. Maja S. K. Ratkje (Foto: Ultima / Helge Sten (Photo: Ultima / Henrik Beck) Henrik Beck) 32 Sounding the Nation What is the meaning and role of national music in a land like Norway and the Nordic region, where the idea of nationality is less complicated than elsewhere? Maren Ørstavik explores ideas of nationalism as portrayed in the music at Ultima and Nordic Music Days.

THE SOUND OF THE NATION Even though modern music, one thing contemporary music is not, avant garde culture and experimental surely it’s nationalist? The year marking the two hundredth art plays an important role in its own anniversary of Norway’s constitution time, it’s equally self-evident that MUSIC AS NATION is already approaching its end. a contemporary music festival can Perhaps the most fun was to be had embrace the concept of The Nation. In a year when Norway is celebrating during the first few months, leading Many decades have gone by since the its own nationhood with an abun- up to the big national day on 17 May, most uncompromising modernism dance of both historical and newly and easily forgotten in the midst of tried to steer art towards the interna- created cultural events, it is natural to summer heat and major international tional and universal, away from the reflect on the chicken-and-egg ques- events. But the party is not quite over parochial (and especially, perhaps, tion of which came first: the culture — there is still some music to come. the national), and although today’s or the nation. It’s not completely Most of the country’s more music is far less bound by such absurd to point out that some histor- historically­ established cultural thinking, it is still what characterises ical artworks are the result of con- institutions have already dealt with ideas about the place of art in society: scious nation-building, because that the issue; partly at the request of the it is primarily international; art and can sometimes undeniably appear to funding authorities, partly out of music are a universal language; be true. their own natural interest. Our oldest and you cannot use them to express Other countries than Norway have theatrical, musical and cultural insti- a particular national attitude. been characterised by nationalism tutions have influenced Norwegian So it feels almost perverse to go and the search for their own natio­ society since the constitution and with The Nation as the theme for a nal cultural identity in much of the even earlier, and strictly speaking it contemporary music festival. It runs modern era. A great deal of the music is only fair that they should look contra to what many have been we now think of as nationalistic, or backwards — or at least glance in the fighting against for the whole of their romanticising the national, stems mirror — and actively examine their artistic, academic and political lives, from countries which have been ruled role as participants in a national and might almost be suspected of by others in the past: Polish, Czech public debate. being an ironic label — for if there’s and Hungarian national cultures were 34 35 dominated by the great powers of goose chase. Art rarely waits for the Norwegian-ness as something utopian, But as a point of origin, which has important to the listening experience. the distinctions between real cultural Russia and Germany-Austria, while in rest of society to fire the starting-gun non-existent, a dream more than a overwhelmingly dominated centuries Since Western classical music has differences and cultural prejudices Scandinavia, the histories of Norway’s — and the times when it does the reality. There is an ambivalence that of art music, it has largely become a moved more and more towards the become increasingly difficult to and Finland’s unions with Denmark results are accordingly predictable makes the idea of national roman- kind of common heritage, both histori- purely instrumental as the most distinguish. and Sweden have created strong natio­ and planned, artificial and forced. To ticism slightly more palatable for cally and in the sense that a great deal sublime music, the text — even when nal identities. quote Professor Erling Gulbrandsen, analytically minded modern listeners. of its music is still played extensively part of the work — has often had to MUSIC AS NATION (REPRISE) Even in larger, more powerful who has written about Norwegian-ness This is also a perspective that can be around the world. take second place. In practice this countries like Germany, France and in Gerhard Schjelderup’s second used to support Norway’s immersion Nevertheless, although such means that a listener can freely ap- So maybe it’s not possible — at least, Britain — where national independ- symphony: ‘The task of art is not to in a national music even throughout music can be branded as German, preciate a German song cycle without not any more — to see music as an ence has never been so challenged imitate what already exists, but to much of the last century. Austrian or French, it lacks the kind understanding the language, an ap- expression of one nation. Grieg stands as it has, for example, in Norway — create the representations that they of ‘national’ character found in proach that becomes more difficult in for nationalism in a world that no cultural identity has been the subject apparently mimic.’ Eivind Groven (1901–77) is one much of the music of, for example, Schütz’s intensely oral interpretation. longer exists; for modern listeners of attention. This is not unthinkable in the of those who held folk music close Scandinavia, Eastern Europe or With strong references to singer-song- Beethoven’s symphonies belong to It might look simple — anyone Norwegian context: perhaps cliched until well into the twentieth century, Latin America. In addition, works writer songs and story based folk more of a world culture than a who has had their identity challenged imagery of fjords, mountains and folk and is perhaps best known for his from the German-Austrian musical songs and ballads, Schütz places text German one, and in a time where the needs time to re-establish it, while tunes are not our real common ref- Hjalarljod, the winning entry in the lineage are seldom viewed as an and narrative in the centre, and the main challenge is to get nations to those who have never been ruled by erence point, but the relationship we competition to compose a piece for expression of a particular national language suddenly becomes a more actually unite as a global community, others will not experience identity have developed with them through Oslo’s 900th anniversary in 1950. culture — quite the contrary. Instead, important priority. it is hard not look down at your as a problem. Nevertheless, it does a great cultural awareness in several As a player of the seljefløyte (willow the major classical pillars have been feet, slightly ashamed, at any sign of appear that countries with long, periods over the last two hundred flute ) and the , he cast as part of a common European THE INTER-NATION jingoism — especially when jingoism continuous periods of independence years. took inspiration from folk music heritage. Although Bach was German enters the arts. and power soon reach for culture and the Norwegian landscape in his and Schubert Austrian by birth, both Although it’s easy to think of the use Although we can easily pat our when turbulence threatens, in search compositions throughout his career, are undeniably experienced as less of national traditions, folklore and folk musical compatriots on the back of confirmation of a shaky identity. ‘The task of art is not to imitate from Symphony No 1 (Inward Pla- ‘national’ than Sibelius, Dvorak or instruments as glorifying nationalism,­ when they make it big abroad, it But to what extent can British what already exists, but to teaux) and the tone poems Fjelltonar Piazzolla. that is not always the case. Mauricio is worth noting that what they are imperialism or German National create the representations that (Mountain Tunes), via adaptations of Robert Schumann’s song cycle Kagel, who is otherwise best known doing is more of an international Socialism really be found within early they apparently mimic.’ melodies and medieval ballads, folk Dichter­liebe is one of the great for his interest in music drama and the rather than a national nature. What twentieth century classical music? songs and national romantic poems. wonders of this central European theatrical possibilities music provides, does it really matter if a musician It’s clear that the national is used as While Groven was a distinctly canon, and is a highlight of the Lieder wrote his piece Exotica for the twen- is Norwegian or Chinese, when the a pretext for cultural production, This year, as we celebrate the national­ism-inspired composer, he also tradition. Its Heinrich Heine text tieth Olympic Games in Munich in core repertoire is Western classical especially in popular culture, but is it constitutional anniversary and focus strove to solve a problem which he certainly makes the work German, 1972. The starting-point — a selection music and experimental international wrong to use culture as a pretext for on the national one more time, it is believed had affected ‘thousands of but to what extent? In the German-­ of ‘non-European’ instruments — avant garde? Do Russian pianists national pride? mediated via completely different por- musicians’ throughout the ages: the speaking world, the word Lied seems pretty obvious at first: when in- interpret Rachmaninov better than tals and expressive tools than in the dream of the just intonation system. (song) has a natural connection to struments don’t have their own names, American ones; do the Japanese play AGAINST THE NATION Roman­tic era and the period follow- Using his own custom-built, German folk culture, from medieval but are defined by what they are not, Takemitsu best? Hardly. ing 1814. For us, the fenced-in nation painstakingly tuned organs, he took troubadours through industrial work the dominant Western perspective is Thus, there remains an almost In Norway, the national has occupied is not necessarily the ultimate utopia, practical steps to move beyond one of songs to modern pop. However, the pulled away and challenged. insurmountable gap between a a central position in culture and and in our contemporary globalised the main features of the folk tradition, Lieder tradition is well established nation’s culture and its political music during several periods: from world, efforts to create a clearly namely temperamental differences throughout Europe — and the genre What does it really matter identity. One can draw on the other, the 1814 constitution up to 1905; in defined national culture are long since between the notes of different scales term ‘song’, or the line-up of vocalist but to try to justify one with the other the strikingly anti-modernist and over. But the questions remain the and instruments, and towards a plus single instrument, can hardly be if a musician is Norwegian simply does not compute, however nationalist Norwegian music in the same: what binds us together? Who is universal, utopian idiom. In Groven’s attributed to one geographical origin. or Chinese, when the core you look at it. It’s a difficult exercise, interwar period; and especially in the the ‘us’ we should connect with? Is Organ House at Ekeberg, in Oslo’s Dichterliebe is now compulsory repertoire is Western classical but considering a nation’s arts and rhetoric of the post-war social demo- there really something we, as citizens, east side, there are several examples repertoire for classical singers the music and experimental culture as something apart from its cratic landscape. The idea of nation share more than others? of the instruments he designed for world over, and stands as a symbol political institutions can help put has been explored by any artist with a this purpose — as a link between of a musical lineage that has become international avant garde? both in perspective. Such thinking certain feeling for identity issues from AMBIVALENCE AND NATURE a national historical past and an international. might get in the way of a straight-up a personal to a global perspective, ap­­p­roaching but still unachieved Bernhard Schütz and Reinhold At the same time, by listening celebration of The Nation, but allows and has been expressed in different Norway’s music history abounds with common future. Friedl place a huge question mark to music you can experience other for the possibility of seeing other ways at different times: first as a quest titles redolent of folk culture and around this musical identity, by things. Kagel also permits the use of contexts, communities and structures towards the national community, later nature. At times it can be a genuine CENTRAL CULTURE toning down the classical aesthetics recordings of indigenous music from than those that are finished, laid bare as a quest away from it. homage to the idea of a distinctively AND IDENTITY we associate with the Lieder tradition. different cultures, which musicians and easily available. That’s what art But the belief that a national music Norwegian identity characterised by With a [tekstnær] voice more like can play along with and against on all at its best can do. is music that arises out of the nation the landscape and historical folklore; ‘Common’ may not be the correct a pop singer’s, Schütz brings Dich- their non-European instruments. — whether that’s folk traditions, alternatively it can be a critique of term when talking about Western art terliebe closer — much closer — to Thus a point is made about similari- references to nature or constitutional exactly those aspects. In many cases music culture, with its heartland in the today’s singing style. Paradoxically, ties and differences, relationships and anniversaries, is bound to be a wild you can see the representation of countries and cities of central Europe. it being in German makes it far more contradictions, and for the listener 36 37

In 2014, the Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival will host Nordic Music Days together with the Norwegian Society of Composers. Nordic Music Days, established and run continuously since 1888, is one of the oldest music festivals in the world. The Nordic Composers Council manages the festival, and the national composers societies in the different Nordic countries take turns arranging it. Today, Nordic Music Days serves as a platform for international exchange between ensembles, musicians and repertoires in order to spread the music of Nordic composers. We welcome everyone to join us in the largest network meeting for Nordic contemporary music. 38 wednesday 17 september wednesday 17 september 39

ultima academy The Dog-days republic New Music Incubator Arv

Arv (piano recital/panel) Kulturkirken Jakob 1 pm Free Asbjørn Schaathun: Nations (WP) Øyvind Torvund: Det abstrakte i folkeunsten (WP) Ingfrid Breie Nyhus (piano) Ingfrid Breie Nyhus, Asbjørn Schaatun, Erik Dæhlin, Øyvind Torvund, Notto Thelle, Rob Young Longitude (Photo: Davyde Wachell)

attempt to run an American-style Quartet, Ensemble Surplus, Avanti!, redevelop, rehearse and perform some The starting point for this recital liberated republic lasted forty days, Eighth Blackbird, Yarn/Wire, Oslo of the works for a public concert. The and discussion is a series of works David Brynjar Franzson: Longitude after which the Danish navy arrived Sinfonietta, asamisimasa and more. New Music Incubator Oslo Reunion participants are: Alexandra Nilsson, commissioned by pianist Ingfrid Ensemble Adapter to deal with him. At Stanford University he worked Riksscenen Jan Liljekvist, Benjamin Quigley, Breie Nyhus as part of her re- Vulkan Arena Longitude, a radical new installa- with Brian Ferneyhough and Mark 3 pm Johan­nes Bergmark (Sweden); search project Arv (Inheritance). 8 pm tion-like chamber opera, is inspired Applebaum as well as with Tristan Free Annika Cleo, Carly Lake (Finland): Composers Øyvind Torvund by the extraordinary yet little known Murail at Columbia. He is a founding Auste·ja Valušyte·, Julija Karaliunaite, and Asbjørn Schaathun are all in- 200,– /150,– story of the man Icelanders remember member of the Icelandic composers Jurgis Baltrušaitis, Leonardas Pilkau- trigued by the question of national as ‘the dog-days king’. Scored for five collective s.l.a.t.u.r. and co-runs In April 2014, twenty professional skas, Sandra Kazlauskaite, Viktorija identity and folk music. Torvund’s In 1807, at the height of the Napole- instruments and three performers, the Carrier Records, a label for new and composers, musicians and sound Smailyte (Lithuania); Elo Masing, piano/video piece is inspired by onic Wars, the royal Danish watch- libretto consists entirely of words that . artists from the Nordic and Baltic Robert Jürjendahl (Estonia); Erik Norwegian folk ornaments and maker presented his son, Jørgen can be reproduced by instruments, Ensemble Adapter is a German/ countries met for four days at Nida McKenzie, Geir Sundbø, Steinar the paintings of Gerhard Richter. Jørgenson, with his own warship, and the staging involves manipulated Icelandic contemporary music group Art Colony on an island in Lithuania. Yggeseth (Norway); Line Tjørnhøi, In Nations, Schaatun electroni- intending that he should use it to props, lighting and projections. based in Berlin. RY Every day the participants created Nikolaj Kynde (Denmark); Jason cally stirs up music from all over defend Denmark against the English Rather than presenting the subject new music pieces in close collabora- Alder (USA). the world in virtual centrifuges. fleet. Jørgen — who was already a as a historical narrative, colonisation Supported by the Norwegian Society of tion, which were premiered the same Afterwards both composers Composers. devoted Anglophile — was captured and ideological failure are explored as evening. All concerts were internal, Oslo Reunion Concert is part of NMI Neringa, join a panel moderated by British by the English, and while under process, action and physical material. with no audience. The project design which is arranged by Uruppförandeklubben, music writer Rob Young on and is generously supported by Nordic ­Culture house arrest in London, he managed Longitude was created by David ensured that every day new groups Fund, Nordic Culture Point, Lithuanian reinventing the past with new to persuade an English merchant, Brynjar Franzson (music/electronics), were created, and no one worked Council for Culture, Musikalliansen, Elektron­ technologies. Also taking part are Joseph Banks, that it would be profit- Angela Rawlings (text), Halldór with the same person twice. Via this musikstudion EMS and Ultima Festival. Erik Dæhlin, whose Avstandsriss The project is facilitated by Ruta Vitkauskaite able to begin trading with the Danish Úlfarsson (set/robotics) and Davyde meeting, New Music Incubator hopes (Lithuania/UK) and Martin Q Larsson (performed on 13 September) colony on Iceland, in defiance of Wachell (stage direction / video). to promote mutual professional devel- (Sweden). recombines thousands of Nor- Denmark’s monopoly. Eventually he David Brynjar Franzson is an opment, skill sharing and the develop- wegian folk music samples, and Supported by the Norwegian Society of sailed to Reykjavik, took the Danish Icelandic composer based in New ment of networks for future projects. Composers. Notto Thelle (NOTAM), who will governor prisoner and declared him- York. His works have been performed The participants meet again in present the work of composer self the island’s protector. Jørgenson’s by ensembles such as the Arditti Oslo during the Ultima Festival, to and instrument builder Eivind Groven (see page 20). 40 wednesday 17 september thursday 18 september 41

Nordic wonderland Electronic North I Electronic North II PechaKucha: Six minute sound odysseys

plateaus, volcanic rocks, green recent book Sonic Wonderland: moss-covered islands, forests, fields, A Scientific­ Odyssey Of Sound. He Korp, korp coast, mountains, fjords, lakes, snow PechaKucha will talk about ‘sonic wonders’ and Dansens Hus and ice. The Nordic countries have Vulkan Arena why you should bring a tape recorder 10 am / 11 am such a rich and diverse landscape 9 pm with you on holiday. Nwando Ebizie 120,– that it proves hard to draw a common Free will give a talk on Nonclassical, line. Still, most would agree that there a London based club concept the (Also played 19 September) is something particular and definable Simon Løffler: C Financial Times described as ‘a fresh about ‘the Nordic landscape’. approach to the presentation, Korp Korp is an interactive perfor- The performance lasts thirty PechaKucha: dissemination and consumption of mance for children aged six months ­minutes, with time afterwards for Trevor Cox classical music’. From Sweden, Mads to three years, where the children further exploration of the room. Lindström will take us behind the enter and explore a landscape. Nwando Ebizie scenes at ’s EMS electronic The children meet two dancers in Concept, idea, choreography and dance: Ragnar Berthling studio, which he directs, and Ragnar Annika Ostwald, Ida Uvaas this environment. Two peculiar shapes, Composer and sound design: Jens L. Thomsen Mads Lindström Berthling guides us around the festi- birdlike and identical. Maybe human, Scenographer and sculptor: Carl Nilssen-Love Ida Lundén Rikhardur H. Fridriksson Anne Hilde Neset val Sound Of Stockholm. maybe birds, maybe both. These bird Electronics development: Hans Wilmers, The PechaKucha sessions will NOTAM Arnbjörg Maria Danielsen twins land in the unknown landscape Technician: Cato Langnes, NOTAM be bookended by two musical together with the children, and Character development: Nancy Mannes The Electronic North I The Electronic North II Lars Kynde performances. Beforehand, Simon together they embark on discovering Costume design: Elena Becker & Maria OCA OCA Løffler presentsC , a sonic installation Melinder Victor Lisinsky: Intersecting Pulses a new world. The installation is sculp- Lighting consultant: Martin Myrvold 6 pm 1 pm in which musicians and audience tural, three dimensional, and filled Photography: Anja Elmine Basma Free Free Isak Edberg / Mats Erlandsson / members generate sounds by taking with objects. We focus on experiencing an electronic device between their Collaborators and co-producers: Dan- Victor Lisinski the room with our senses: the children searena Nord, Nord-Trøndelag Teater, Dans Ida Lundén: Songs My Mothers Risto Holopainen: Speilraum teeth. The piece seeks to make our can see, smell, look, hear, touch, move i Nord-Trøndelag and Notam Norwegian Taught Me Rikhardur H. Fridriksson: Three body the medium in which the music and be present. Within a set perfor- Center for Technology in Music and the Arts. PechaKucha — a Japanese word arises, and tries to establish a context Maija Hynninen: Borrowed Works On The Nature Of Iceland mance framework, there is freedom Supported by: Kunstløftet (Arts Council meaning ‘babbling’ — is a system where we are all connected through for improvisation and discovery. Norway), Nordic Culturepoint and Fund For Tunes: 1. Dead Man Theme Thuridur Jonsdóttir: INNI – designed to help speakers stick to the listening. Performing Artists. The abstract landscape draws Osmo Tapio Räihälä: Seurat I Musica Da Camera point. Experienced speakers and Afterwards, Victor Lisinsky’s inspiration from our Nordic heritage. Produced in collaboration with Dansens novices alike are allowed twenty Intersecting Pulses juxtaposes But how can one define ‘the Nordic Hus. Supported by the Norwegian Society of The first Nordic Music Days 2014 In Thuridur Jonsdóttir’s INNI, slides with twenty seconds on each, traditional Balinese gamelan instru- Composers. landscape’? It’s diverse and varied: event features a selection of con- the fragile harmonics of a Baroque with a total of six minutes and forty ments and specially designed live temporary electronic music. Com- violin interact with a soundscape seconds, to present their project or electronic instruments to explore how poser and performer Ida Lundén generated from an infant’s mur- idea. PechaKucha nights are also expressions from different nations presents Songs My Mothers Taught mur, with an ancient lullaby woven informal social gatherings for creative and cultures can be used to create a Me for female cellist is inspired into the texture. Risto Holopainen’s people who want to exchange ideas. new locality. Put in a new context, by and celebrating famous and algorithmic composition Spiel- At the PechaKucha night during the strong traditions of the different successful ancestors and forebears. raums employs systems associated Nordic Music Days, contributors will expressions create something new. Maija Hynninen’s Borrowed with computer games. Rikhardur be presenting ideas, projects and The piece is a collaborative work Tunes 1: Dead Man Theme builds H Fridriksson’s Three Pieces On ­concepts related to contemporary involving composers/performers on Neil Young’s mesmerising The Nature Of Iceland examines music, serving as a showcase and Isak Edberg, Mats Erlandsson and soundtrack for Jim Jarmusch’s the extraordinary sonic qualities of mingling opportunity for delegates Victor Lisinski. It was composed col- filmDead Man from 1995. Osmo Iceland’s natural environment. and audience alike. laboratively by playing and creating Tapio Räihälä’s Seurat I combines A talk on new music and Speakers include Trevor Cox, software solutions together. violin, kantele and live electronics. streaming with Music Norway, professor of Acoustic Engineering at Nordic playlist et al will follow. the University of Salford, presenter Supported by the Norwegian Society of Composers and FINNO. Supported by the Norwegian Society of many science programmes on the of Composers. Supported by the Norwegian Society of Composers. BBC, and author of the acclaimed Korp, korp (Photo: Anja Elmine Basma) 42 thursday 18 september thursday 18 september 43

ultima academy A Breath of fresh air Utopian North

has worked with closely over the past An opera about the absurdity of eight years. opera, in other words. Buenos Aires Simon Steen-Andersen: The theme revolves around the is a work that probably raises more Utopian North (panel) Buenos Aires (WP) type of experience Steen-Andersen questions than it answers. With DogA Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart / considers part of Scandinavia’s inter- its location-specific title and clear 11 am Ensemble asamisimasa nal dictatorship. Our own evasiveness cultural conflict, there’s an inevitable Free and self-censorship becomes painfully question about the composer’s re- Den Norske Opera & Ballett evident in encounters with more open lationship to the ‘Nation’ theme of Eivind Buene, David Brynjar 7.30 pm cultures. A terrible burden this might this year’s Ultima. ‘Well,’ says Steen-­ Franzson, Ida Lundén, Simon 350,– / 250,– be, but it can also reveal a very special Andersen, ‘Buenos Aires is a kind of Løffler, Morten Eide Pedersen Also performed 19 September intimacy, intensity and beauty. The subjective interpretation of stiffness, paradox lies in the fact that the most indirectness and bodily resistance explicit cultures often have their own that I always felt was a part of my What are the advantages and Buenos Aires is a chamber opera particular history in relation to dicta- Scandinavian identity.’ disadvantages of living as a com- about identity, ambivalence, com- torships, like Argentina, for example. The cast is the German vocal poser in the well funded Nordic munication and the many paradoxes Steen-Andersen has himself lived and ensemble Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart states? In this forum, a handful that arise when cultures meet. Or did studied in Buenos Aires: ‘I lived in and the Norwegian Ensemble asami- of composers from Denmark, Simon Steen-Andersen simply made Buenos Aires for a year and love the simasa, with whom Steen-­Andersen Finland, Iceland, Norway and an opera about good air? city,’ he says. ‘The first ideas for the has worked for many years. AW Sweden comment on their works A brand new work by Simon opera came during my stay there and I for Nordic Music Days 2014 and Steen-Andersen is a momentous event. chose to name the project after the city In collaboration with Neue Vokalsolisten discuss artistic life in the Nordic Stuttgart, Asamisimasa and The Norwegian The Dane has recently attracted at- primarily because of the paradoxically National Opera & Ballet. countries, and their approaches to tention on the European music scene literal meaning of its name. A city funding possibilities, career build- with his multimedia works, known for with a bit of a pollution problem called Supported by the Norwegian Society of ing and everyday life. Composers and Arts Council Norway. their original and uncompromising ‘fair winds’… It captured perfectly content. His work has revolved around the general tendency to ambiguity and the physical and choreographic contradiction that, at least in my eyes, aspects of performing music with seems forever present in Argentina instruments. This time it is the voice and Argentine culture. Ambivalence that stands in the centre. or contradictory meanings and values The prolific composer’s works is the theme of the opera, in a way.’ are located along the borderlines Buenos Aires is also about between music, performance, theatre indirectness and resistance in and video, and in Buenos Aires the communication — the absurdity of composer even takes on the roles of communicating through song. In the librettist, stage designer and director first scene, one of the characters is in an attempt to integrate the various confronted with the operatic genre elements further. ‘Instead of conceiving as a child, and comes up with three individual ideas for the stage, the mu- solutions to the ‘opera problem’: sic or props, and so on,’ he says, ‘I can 1) Just let the characters sing when look for ideas that are already affect- they should actually be singing in ing several of the different categories. the story. In this way the different levels are 2) Set the story in a different reality, indistinguishable from each other.’ where the song is accepted as a Apart from himself, the crew will form of communication. consist of the Neue Vocalsolisten 3) Find alternative ways to com- Stuttgart and Norwegian outfit municate, with other musical Buenos Aires as seen by Simon Steen-Andersen asamisimasa, ensembles the composer by-products. 44 thursday 18 september thursday 18 september 45 Fifty years of EMS On the Outside

Marie Munroe / Panta Rei Danseteater: On the Outside Riksscenen 9 pm 200,– / 150,– Also performed 19 September

Is this a choreographed concert or a musical dance performance? The simple answer is that it’s both. On The Outside is an encounter between artist Marie Munroe and Panta Rei Danseteater, with costumes by Hanne Iveland Henriksbø and visual design by Anastasia Isachsen. It is a produc- tion in which four forms of expression tell the story and where compromise and intransigence go hand in hand. The starting point for the perfor- mance is a quote by American writer Dave Eggers: ‘You have what I can EMS Electronic Music Studio, Stockholm afford to give’. It is taken from the Marie Munroe (Photo: Ultima / Henrik Beck) critically acclaimed novel A Heart- the anniversary with performances by independent, non-profit operation. breaking Work Of Staggering Genius, Panta Rei and Marie Munroe. exciting phase in Munroe’s musical Hanna Hartman and Erik Bünger. Today the centre, under the leadership and the performance attempts to Many contemporary dance en- career. EMS 5oth Anniversary Concert EMS was founded in 1964, with of Mads Lindström, is a separate part convey not only the pain, but also the thusiasts will already have heard of Costume designer Hanne Iveland Kulturkirken Jakob Norwegian composer Knut Wiggen of Statens Musikkverk,­ and experienc- beauty encapsulated in this sentence. Panta Rei, one of the most popular Henriksbø has long experience in 5 pm and civil engineer Tage Westlund ing an enormous amount of interest The sentence is a bearer of courage; dance companies in Norway, and designing costumes for film and TV. 100,– in key roles. The studio was run by from around the world. Past visitors it renders intimacy harmless, and one that is becoming increasingly She has created sculptural costumes Swedish Radio, which was responsible have included Stockhausen and Philip reminds us that we are all autocratic popular internationally, too. Panta for exhibitions and the stage, and Hanna Hartman: Mezcal no. 8 for its operation and financial support. Glass, and more recently Mark Fell, beings — or lonely beings, if you like. Rei’s performances are known for her costumes play a key role in this For most people, this type of electronic Lustmord and Stephen O’Malley of ‘“You have what I can afford to their high level of artistic quality and production. Lighting and video by Erik Bünger: The Third Man music was pure science fiction (and Sunn O))). Hanna Hartmann and Erik give” says something about human their ability to engage audiences at Anastasia Isachsen, one of Norway’s many saw it as a waste of public Bünger are two Swedish composers beings’ existential loneliness, where different levels. foremost video artists. Isachsen has Swedish music has generally enjoyed funds), but with the encouragement of associated with EMS in recent years. we as individuals will never gain an Marie Munroe is better known collaborated in numerous projects a confidence and international status the likes of Karlheinz Stockhausen and Hartmann works with authentic identical understanding of life, where as Hilde Marie Kjersem, an artist involving concerts, dance produc- of the rest of us Nordics can only the Cologne school, the facility quickly sounds from around the world, which, we can accurately recount stories with a long list of solid releases and tions, music, theatre, installations and admire. Our neighbours even played became a vital unit. In 1967 the studio taken out of their original context, to each other, but anyone who was collaborative projects to her credit exhibitions, in Norway and abroad. a vital role in electroacoustic music. became the first in the world to have can be perceived in their pure form. not there there at the time have over the past twenty years. Marie has This year the EMS (Elektronmusikk­ ­ its own computerised sound system Bunger’s work revolves around the only the words to rely on. So to some studied jazz and sung rock and pop. Production: Panta Rei Danseteater. studion) celebrates its fiftieth year, but and digital recording capabilities. human voice and its contradictory extent, knowing others and the sense Under the artistic name of Marie On stage: Kari Vikjord, Robert Guy, Erlend is by no means a sleeping giant. The Over the years the studio has been relationship to the body, as well as to of belonging will always be based Munroe, she has taken her distinctive Ringseth, Ole Myrvold, Erland Dalen, Marie Munroe. centre still functions as a national and based at several different offices in language, music and technology. AW on differentness.That­ may be an experimental electro pop music to international resource as well as being Stockholm. Nonetheless, EMS has unpleasant train of thought to pursue a new level of perfection. The new On The Outside is presented in cooperation an active studio. Ultima is celebrating managed to retain its position as an Supported by Arts Council Norway. if you don’t want to feel alone,’ say name signifies the start of a new and with CODA Oslo International Dance Festival. 46 friday 19 september friday 19 september 47

ultima academy The world’s a stage Aksiom stations Buenos Aires

generation, Aksiom has become an important vehicle for performances of Aksiom the latest music from budding new Buenos Aires (discussion) Kulturkirken Jakob composers. Loftet 5 pm This concert is devoted to them. 10 am 100,– Lisa Streich from Sweden has Free already attracted international atten- Kaj Duncan David: tion for her music, which is charac- Simon Steen-Andersen, terised by an orientation towards the Computer Music (WP) religious and the philosophical, and Esteban Buch, asamisimasa, Øyvind Mæland: Nytt verk (WP) for which she has won several awards Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart Lisa Streich: Papirosn and stipends. Aksiom continues its Johan Svensson: Shiver (WP) collaboration with Øyvind Møland The voice is a symbol of liberation and solo vocalist Stine Motland, who and self-expression. But a voice Aksiom also performed at Performa13 in can also remain silent, or be Stine Janvin Motland – vocal New York. It will also be performing forcibly silenced. In Buenos Aires, Kai Grinde Myrann – conductor new works by Johan Svensson and performed at this year’s Ultima Kaj Duncan David. David’s audio- (18 September), innovative visual computer music is performed Danish composer Simon Steen-­ Many ensembles that are formed in almost complete darkness, illu- Andersen deals with the cultural during college days at music acad- minated only by the glow from the shock experienced during a long emies and conservatories the world computer monitors. MØ stay in the Argentine capital, and over rarely manage more than a issues of artistic censorship under few concerts before they disband. The concert is supported by the Fund for one of Latin America’s more Verdensteatret (Photo: Ultima / Henrik Beck) Performing Artists, Norwegian Society of Aksiom student ensemble, formed by Composers, Norwegian Composers Fund and unfortunate­ historical episodes, students at the Norwegian Academy Arts Council Norway. the Argentinian dictatorship. international in different art ­contexts before the opening at Henie Onstad of Music in 2010, is one of the excep- Argentine musicologist and and locations. New work by the Art Center in September. The new tions to that rule. Comprising instru- librettist Esteban Buch (École Verdensteatret Broen over Gjørme group, which in 2006 received the piece is a hybrid between concert, mentalists driven by a passion for des Hautes Études en Sciences (Bridge Over Mud ) pres­tigious Bessie Award in New performance and installation, where contemporary music and with strong Sociales, Paris), specialises in Henie Onstad Art Center (HOK) / York, is always met with high the whole space is played as one poly- ties to Nordic composers of their the relationship between music Studio anticipation. phonic audiovisual instrument. and politics. Here he hosts a con- The works of Verdensteatret Broen over Gjørme (Bridge Over versation with Steen-­Andersen, 6 pm often appear as a journey through Mud) is is created and performed singers from Neue Vocalsolisten 160,– / 120,– (includes entry to different forms of landscapes. This by the artists: Lisbeth J. Bodd, Asle Stuttgart and musicians from Josef Alber exhibition Små grep new piece are right now entering its Nilsen, Piotr Pajchel, Eirik Bleke- asamisimasa, following the dif- Stor effekt) last phase towards completion after saune, Ali Djabbary, Martin Taxt, ferent phases of putting on a a long and winding road. Among a Benjamin Nelson, Elisabeth Gmeiner, stage work, from conception and great diversity of material to surface Torgrim Torve, Espen Sommer Eide, composition through to rehearsal, A world premiere by one of Norway’s this time there are some imprints Kristine R. Sandøy and Thorolf performance and interpretation. most innovative and experimental art from their last stay in India in 2011. Thuestad. constellations. Moving through different landscapes Verdensteatret consist of artists simultaneously might be a result of A collaboration between Ultima Oslo Contempo­rary Music Festival, Henie Onstad from different artistic professions Verdensteatret’s nearly three decades Art Center, Black Box Teater, BIT Teater­ who for almost thirty years have been of nomadic practice. garasjen and Verdensteatret. Verdensteatret is making installations, performance Nevertheless it is still not pos- supported by The Council. art, concerts and related works. Their sible to predict which direction the Also showing 20–21 & 23–28 September (2 pm) productions are presented widely work will take in the time to come More information at verdensteatret.com Aksiom (Photo: Martin Rane Bauck) 48 friday 19 september friday 19 september 49

ultima academy New Nordic champions A Supranational Get the Humpp! Anthem

Ultima and Oslo Philharmonic Chinese guzheng, samplers and interpreter of traditional and ‘serious’ Orchestra present five new orchestral symphony orchestra, had its break- music, but has also been widely Oslo Philharmonic works by a star-studded line-up of through when it earned him first prize A Supranational Anthem Avanti! Ensemble known for its musical excursions into Oslo Konserthus / Oslo Concert Hall Scandinavia’s most distinctive young at the Shanghai Spring International (lecture) HumppAvanti! everything from jazz and Soviet avant 7 pm musicians. Malin Bång’s Avgår, pågår, Music Festival in May 2009. Loftet Vulkan Arena garde to heavy metal. Under the ar- 300,– / 100,– commissioned jointly with Gothen- The conductor for this evening is 1 pm 11 pm tistic leadership of Kari Kriikku, the burg Symphony Orchestra, is a world Ilan Volkov. Born in Israel in 1976, twenty year old orchestra have made Free 150,– / 100,– Malin Bång: Avgår, pagår (WP) premiere. The work is a fascinating Volkov began his conducting career it their goal to blow away musical and noise-inflected wander through the at the age of nineteen. In 2003 he was social boundaries and, in defiance of Ørjan Matre: Violin concert streets of her native city, Gothenburg. appointed Principal Conductor of the Esteban Buch ‘The roots of humppa can be found in their critics, have become a respected Hlynur Adils Vilmarsson: bd Ørjan Matre’s violin concerto will BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra the popular dance music of the 1920s and award winning orchestra in Anna Thorvaldsdottir: Dreaming have its Norwegian premiere just a and subsequently became its Principal Beethoven’s Ode To Joy has been and thirties: foxtrot, tango and , Finland and the rest of the world. By Simon Steen-Andersen: Ouvertures week after its world premiere in the Guest Conductor in 2009. Volkov the anthem of: played by orchestras in restaurants taking up the humppa genre they are For Guzheng, Sampler And Netherlands. took up his new appointment as Music a) Rhodesia and dancehalls,’ says Pekka Gronow, showing respect to several generations In 2012 Iceland’s Anna Thor- Director and Principal Conductor b) The European Union a Finnish musicologist and ethnomu- of Finnish popular music. Orchestra valdsdottir was awarded the Nordic of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra c) The UEFA European Football sicology lecturer, explaining the pecu- ‘Finnish listeners will immediately Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra Council Music Award for Dreaming. at the beginning of the 2011/12 Championship liar Finnish musical genre humppa. recognise the original versions of these The music is reminiscent of a shifting season. In March 2012 he curated Humppa was invented in Finland songs, even though their attitudes to Ilan Volkov (conductor) landscape that gives the impression of and directed a three-day festival of The answer: all of the above — in the fifties, originating with the them may vary,’ jokes Gronow. Peter Herresthal (violin) time standing still, as if in a dream. contemporary music, Tectonics. and more. Why? What is it about celebrated radio personality Antero HumppAvanti! is not a blueprint Liu Le (guzheng) Simon Steen-Andersen’s Ouver­ the final movement of Beethoven’s ­Alpol’s comedy programme Kank- for a genre that has repeatedly been tures, a work for the traditional Produced by Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. Symphony No 9 that makes it so kulan Kaivolla (‘Kankkula’ means a revived, but rather a platform for universally appealing? Where does mythical place — the Finnish equiv- Avanti! to suspend the musical rules it get its symbolic force? alent of ‘Hicksville, USA’). His house and humorously add traces of jazz, The Ninth symphony was band, made up of an older generation klezmer and any other styles they composed at the height of the Eu- of musicians, parodied pre-war popu­ see fit to melt into the genre. For ropean Restoration, but Beethoven lar music by performing it on ‘folk’ many listeners, it’s also a meeting of adopted Schiller’s poem in order instruments like tuba, banjo, accor- tradition and innovation in a genre to convey a truly revolutionary dion, violin and saxophone. Alpol that, in spite of good neighbourly experience: a community of free himself came up with the name, a var- relations between the countries, has people sharing common dreams, iation on the German ‘oompah’ style. never officially come to Norway until united in brotherhood. How has The programme and its music now. A distinctively Finnish invention it come to mean so different, even were immensely popular. Beyond the that has proved to withstand the test contradictory, things, since its first sixties, the music spread like an epi- of time. On many levels. performance in 1824? demic throughout Finland. Specialist Before the HumppAvanti! concert Esteban Buch, author of the festivals were set up, dancehalls filled you can hear ethnomusicologist acclaimed Beethoven’s Ninth: up and the style became the standard Pekka Gronow talk about humppa as A Political History (2003), tells for most self-respecting dance bands. a musikal form. In addition, Humpp­ the controversial story of a work What began as a musical revival and Avanti!’s ‘father of the band’, Timo that became a political symbol parody was widely believed to be the Hietala, will reveal the story behind in spite of itself, and discusses the real thing. Although the humppa the Avanti! Ensemble’s flirtation with incorporation of music into the wave died down after the seventies, humppa. DJ collective Norwegian political realm. it was still common for a long time Disco Lovers present DJ Mette (Nor- to hear dance bands embracing this way’s oldest DJ, and its first female music style. one, too) before the concert, and will With HumppAvanti! the genre guarantee a great atmosphere on the has been revitalized and expanded dancefloor afterwards.AW once more. The Avanti! chamber orchestra has a long tradition as an Supported by FINNO and Norwegian Society of Composers. 50 saturday 20 september saturday 20 september 51 The magic mountain

Many artists today seek to cross the that’s a rather defensive attitude to borders between art genres, though take. Then of course I discovered DR UnderholdningsOrkestret few manage it as elegantly as com- how incredibly difficult it is to juggle Universitetets aula poser Eivind Buene. His orchestral between lyrics and music. When I im- 2 pm pieces, ideas, and commissioned merse myself in the lyrics, the music 200,– / 150,– works all display a distinct musical fades to the back of my consciousness, intuition, whether it be contemporary, and vice versa. Both elements have an Karin Rehnqvist: Breaking the Ice orchestral or pop. inherent desire to comply with their He recently added ‘writer’ to own natural laws, if you get what I Bent Sørensen: Papillon Mignon his already extensive list of talents, mean. But when lyrics and music are Eivind Buene: Blue Mountain (WP) thanks to the well-received novels to work in unison on stage, they have Enmannsorkester and Allsang and the to balance. We’re used to dealing with DR UnderholdningsOrkestret, collection of essays, Dobbeltliv, pub- this balance in the song format. But I Mattis Herman Nyquist, Andrea lished earlier this year, which makes a soon decided that I wanted a dialogue Bræin Hovig closer study of the crossing paths be- and that it should not be sung. This Conductor: Baldor Brönnimann tween music and literature. Where the gave rise to other problems and, well, one begins and the other ends is no I had to try and learn a whole new longer easy to see; nor is it important. way of thinking. He problematises the significance of ‘A concert is a bit like being in a music in lyrics, though he does the haunted house: all that dead music same when composing music. After coming alive.’ is a line from the Blue Mountain, which premieres on work. Are you mostly interested in the final day of Ultima, he can now memories and artistic events from add ‘playwright’ to his resumé. This bygone days? work seems to be a continuation of Keep in mind that it’s the character the explorative aspect of his texts. in the piece that says it, not me. And We asked him about the signifi- memories constitute the elements cance of memory when experiencing on which a lot of art, whether it be music, the death motifs that seem so music, literature or film, is based. But alive for us, the idea of the orchestra I often find that old music living a life performing bygone music, Marcel of its own on the sheet music shelves Proust, Mahler, Tor Ulven … can suddenly seem to come to life in the concert ritual. Music that was How did this come about? Is it dead yesterday can come to life to- an old idea you rediscovered and morrow. And I think that orchestras decided to develop? have their own memories, their own No, not at all. Quite the opposite, experiences, and that entering into actually. The festival asked if I would a dialogue with them can produce like to compose a work for which I good results when one is writing new wrote both lyrics and music. And music. Naturally, there is a danger of I did. That method is quite common appearing sealed off, like a universe for , but contemporary that is open only to the initiated, but composers rarely write their own an orchestra is also like a massive lyrics. In the old days, it was quite sensual machine, with an abundance common. For example, Wagner wrote of colours and textures. You must his own librettos. The preference always try to harness that energy and today is for canonised and ‘patinated’ avoid composing your way into a lyrics, particularly in opera. I thinks musical mausoleum. Eivind Buene (Photo: Ultima / Henrik Beck) 52 saturday 20 september saturday 20 september 53 Worlds apart

The music in the work is mainly orchestral concert, and that is the auditorium and listen, then have close based on fragments of the past setting for the story being told. That’s dialogue with the conductor and let greatness of others … why I used the term ‘orchestral him or her take care of the dialogue Well… Both the music and hte text radio play’, as it points beyond the with the musicians. In this instance, are based on Mahler’s song ‘Ich bin traditional radio play. We haven’t we have a conductor with whom I der Welt abhanden gekommen’. But seen much of this in Norway, but have already collaborated on several I would say that I have composed a Germany has a long tradition in cre- occasions. Baldur Brönnimann has new work which only I could have ating musically ambitious radio plays. that rare ability to be both extremely written, because the quotations and For example, Nobel laureate Elfriede alert and relaxed at the same time. fragments that flow out in the form of Jelinek and composer Olga Neuwirth And he possesses an intuitive under­ text and music originate in my per- have written a radio play for German standing of what I’m trying to sonal reservoir of memories. And it is radio. achieve with an orchestra. Composers the pressure of this flow of memories Ingrid Bolsø Berdal and Mattis often have no say in the choice of that has given rise to the new music Herman Nyquist, two of Norway’s conductor; they just have to cross and to the way in which I combined foremost young actors, are taking their fingers and hope for the best. the memory material. It must be said part in this production. What’s so When I heard that Baldur was going that long sections of the music are special about them? to conduct Blue Mountain, it was a also brand new compositions, and I was looking for someone with huge relief. It meant I had one thing frictions clearly arise between the old specific musical qualities, actors who less to worry about in what is a rather and the new when listeners suddenly could become part of the orchestra’s complex project. hear fragments of music they recog- time flow. I already knew Mattis Her- Will Blue Mountain and this nize without quite knowing why. But man, and I knew that he was good. method be a one-off event? throughout its lifetime. Ensemble separation is located in the instru- when I compose, I derive as much In fact, we’ve even sung together on a I hope not. I hope that other orches- Ernst is a group of talented musicians ment itself; a violin has been split into pleasure from making up surprising few occasions, in a very low-threshold tras will see this format as something Ensemble Ernst with great expressivity, an innovative four and had a microphone attached, combinations of textual and musical male quartet! Fortunately, he had which their audiences might enjoy. Kulturkirken Jakob programme, and an important place creating four new instruments that events as from writing hundreds of time to squeeze in this project be- But it is in the nature of new music 6 pm in the contemporary Norwegian produce sounds having little in com- bars of completely new music. Assign­ tween performances of Peer Gynt at that a first performance may be the 200,– / 150,– music scene. mon with the original instrument. ing new meanings to old music by the National Theatre. I found Ingrid last, especially when one is trying This year’s programme includes Finland’s Sampo Haapamäki’s creating an interesting context is also after doing some research in actors’ to find new ways of staging an Djuro Zivkovic: On The Guarding Serbian-Swedish Djurö Zivkovic’ Velinikka for quarter-tone part of the composition process. circles, and I realised that she was orchestra. Working with actors who On The Guarding Of The Heart, and orchestra, is part of Haapamäki’s You call it a radio play; how do a real find even at the first reading must interweave with the orchestra Of The Heart which was awarded the prestigious doctoral studies in composition at you characterise that genre? audition. She is highly responsive to rather than just talk alongside it Hikari Kiyama: Shamisen Grawemeyer Award for Music the prestigious Columbia University By radio play, I mean a radio genre, and enthusiastic about this approach requires other working methods than Morten Ladehoff:APART Composition in 2014. In the tension in New York. Haapamäki developed a play for the ears. When combined to interaction between stage, text, those used when working on a tradi- Sampo Haapamäki: Velinikka between the social collective and the the quarter-tone accordion together with the genre ‘orchestral concert’, and music. tional orchestral­ concert. But I like individual, Zivkovic explores a per- with Veli Kujala, and this work has something which — hopefully — Could you say a few words about the idea of working experimentally Ensemble Ernst has evolved into one sonal depth he calls ‘the heart of the been performed several times since its transcends the radio theatre format, the orchestra and the conductor in the sense of testing a hypothesis of Scandinavia’s leading contem- spiritual’. Soloist is Veli Kujala. premiere in 2008. Kujala is tonight’s it evolves by assigning the music a performing Blue Mountain? and not being able to predict the porary music ensembles. Thomas The title of Hikari Kiyama’s soloist. MØ much stronger function. The music I hadn’t heard of the orchestra outcome. That’s the essence of trying Rimul been the ensemble’s artistic Shamisen plays on the Japanese should not just serve as background before, it’s one of the Danish Radio again, failing again, and failing director since its formation in 1997, three-string instrument of the same Supported by Norwegian Society of Composers. sounds for the text; it must also carry orchestras. Meeting a new orchestra better, as Beckett once put it. AV and Ernst has played Ultima many name, but is performed here for string part of the narrative development. is always associated with a mixture of times and garnered critical acclaim quartet with the following instruc- And hearing a radio play unfold live dread and anticipation: it’s like meet- In collaboration with DR Underholdnings­ from the international press. New tions from the composer: ‘This is not Orkestret. Supported by Norwegian Society on stage makes a big difference. I’ve ing an organism with thirty, fifty or a of Composers. Norwegian music is an important so-called contemporary music: this is been very conscious of basing Blue hundred heads that can eat you alive part of the ensemble’s repertoire, and noise rock.’ Mountain on the situation in which if you don’t get it right. The conductor Ernst has presented several commis- Morten Ladehoff’s work APART we as musicians, actors and listeners takes care of the practicalities; the sioned works and first performances explores the concept of separation find ourselves: we are attending an composer should preferably sit in the by leading Norwegian composers in different ways. The first form of 54 saturday 20 september saturday 20 september 55 Ultima Finale ultima academy film programme

Antonio Negri’s name is well known band’s history. Their creative reuse of to philosophy and politics aficionados, symbols from extreme ideologies has Art War while for others it has been inex­ created a unique visual expression, Thursday 11 September 6 pm & tricably linked to dramatic develop- a mixture that is also reflected in their Wednesday 17 ments in recent Italian history. This music. is a film about a man blamed for the Cinemateket kidnapping and murder of former Free Italian prime minister Aldo Moro in

2013 1978. It chronicles Negri’s political Director: Marco Wilms awakening, via his tireless efforts to The Pervert’s Guide To Ideology Arabic, English & German, English subtitles improve conditions for Italian factory DCP, colour, 90 min Sunday 14 September 9 pm, workers, to his arrest in connection Wednesday 17 September 8 pm, 18 with the Moro affair and his exile As a former rebellious artist in his in Paris to escape sentencing. There September 9 pm childhood East Germany, who joined he was associated with philosophers Free entry for Ultima Academy the euphoria when the Wall fell, the Deleuze and Foucault, and wrote delegates fearless documentary film maker Empire, the book that made Negri Cinemateket Marco Wilms was perfectly placed to an important figure in the emerging Free Ben Frost (Photo: Borkur Sigthorsson) Karin Krog and John Surman point his camera at street artists dur- anti-globalisation movement. ing the Egyptian revolution. By night UK/Ireland, 2012 he followed graffiti artists, designers, Director: Sophie Fiennes With: Slavoj Žižek Wasp Factory. At the Ultima Finale For the current series of concerts in artists and musicians who each English, no subtitles he will perform from his latest album 2014, they are joined by Surman’s son, played their own part in the uprising, DCP, colour, 134 min Ultima Finale A U R O R A (Mute). Pablo Benjamin Surman, to add the such as Hamed, who says, ‘Changes Victory Under The Sun (Pobjeda Ben Frost: A U R O R A live / One of Norway’s leading, inter- elements of live sampling and elec- are never produced by the majority pod suncem) ‘We are responsible for our dreams. Karin Krog & John Surman / nationally acclaimed jazz vocalists, tronica to their programme. of the population. It’s always been Sunday 14 September 6 pm This is the ultimate lesson of psycho- TCF / Jeppe Just Instituttet Karin Krog, helps Ultima round off With a ramshackle musical aes- minorities who have fundamentally Cinemateket analysis — and fiction movies.’ The with a grand finale concert at Vulkan thetic mixing barrel organ and vintage changed societies because they are the creators of The Pervert’s Guide To Vulkan Arena Arena. Krog is mainly known as analogue synths, unintentional most active.’ Such daring, inspiring Free Cinema are back. Philosopher Slavoj 9 pm – 2 am a great jazz singer, but has strong theatre, sincerity, nostalgia, musical work made its mark on Cairo and Yugoslavia, 1988 Žižek and film maker Sophie Fiennes roots in the avant garde through mismatch and anarchy, Danish dance gave the opposition movement an Director: Goran Gajic use his interpretation of famous 100,– With: Laibach her work with Kåre Kolberg among company Jeppe Just Instituttet’s artistic front. Slovenian, English subtitles movie scenes to present a captivating Since his recording debut in 2003, others. Karin Krog and English repertoire comprises everything from 35 mm, colour, 64 min cinematic journey into the core of Australian Ben Frost has made multi-instrumentalist­ John Surman nursery rhymes to drinking songs ideology — the dreams that shape our a mark with his intense, structural, began working together in the late orchestrated for homemade ‘Laibach is a mission that requires collective faith and practice. minimalist sound art with roots in 1960s when the first wave of avant instruments. fanaticism,’ says lead singer Philosophy provocateur Žižek militant post-classical­ electronic garde was sweeping through the jazz TCF is artist and musician Lars Antonio Negri: A Revolt Fras during Victory Under The Sun, is the star. He examines clips from music. Born in 1980 in Melbourne, scene. Their shared interest in the Holdhus, who explores codes and That Never Ends the lightly fictionalised film from more than 20 films, spooling through Australia, Frost relocated to Reykja­ developing area of electronics resulted cryptography in relation to musical Sunday 14 September 1988 where Laibach demonstrate capitalism, fascism, consumption, vík in 2005 and helped form the in the release of a ground-breaking composition. The musical references 2 pm where they come from, what they Stalinism, religion and more. Fiennes Bedroom Community / LP, Cloud Line Blue, which appeared are taken from electroacoustic music, stand for and who they are. As in follows the successful formula of the collective. In 2010 he was chosen by in 1979. Throughout the following hardcore, poetry, and digital noise. Cinemateket everything Laibach do, their art is a first film, which physically placed Brian Eno as part of the Rolex Men- decades Krog and Surman have con- Free form of deeply serious exaggeration, Žižek within reconstructions of tor and Protégé programme for a year tinued their exploratory collaborations In collaboration with nyMusikk and which forces you to make a decision, famous film sets. Thought-provoking Germany 2004 NATT&DAG. Supported by Norwegian of collaboration. 2013 also marked both in concert and also in a series of Directors: Alexandra Weltz, Andreas Pichler to think for yourself. Thus they have and guaranteed to be entertainment. Society of Composers. his debut as a director with the pre- LPs and CDs. Their work continues to With: Antonio Negri consciously left themselves open English/Italian, English subtitles miere of his first opera, based on Iain develop over a wide range of musical DigiBeta, colour, 52 min to misinterpretationm, which has Banks’s infamous 1984 novel The idioms that defy stylistic barriers. created much controversy during the 56 Installation Ultima thanks:

Atelier Nord Café Mesh Cinemateket Conrad Schnitzler: Mobile CODA Oslo International Dance Festival Danmarks ambassade i Oslo Audiovisual installation by Dans i Nord-Trøndelag Conrad Schnitzler Dansens Hus Dansearena Nord Deichmanske hovedbibliotek Atelier Nord ANX, Olaf Ryes Det norske komponistfond Dextra Musica pl. 2, 0552 Oslo (entrance from DOGA DR UnderholdningsOrkestret Sofienberggt.) Dramatikkens hus Drivhuset 10 – 28 September 2014 EGD Opening: Tuesday 9 September Eivind Grovens Orgelhus Elektronmusikstudion EMS 7 pm Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung Finsk-norsk kulturinstitutt (FINNO) Fond for lyd og bilde 10 pm: Conrad Schnitzler Fond for utøvende kunstnere Fonds Experimentelles Musiktheater NRW – Kassetten-Konzert with Institusjonen Fritt Ord Wolfgang Seidel Conrad Schnitzler Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt Islands ambassade i Oslo Komponistfondet Komponistenes vederlagsfond Atelier Nord presents Conrad installation are based on. The variety Kulturdepartementet Schitzler’s (1937–2011) audiovisual of voices and Schnitzler’s collage-like Kulturkirken Jakob Kulturkontakt Nord installation Mobile during this year’s approach means that this material Kunsthøgskolen i Oslo (KHiO) Ultima festival. The installation is has a huge compositional potential. Kunstløftet MFOs Vederlagsfond based on a combination of Schnitzler’s Conrad Schnitzler was an artist Morgenbladet experimental videos and audio from who defied any attempt at catego- Music Norway Nasjonalbiblioteket the German musician’s cassette-con- rization. Influenced by the Fluxus Nasjonal jazzscene cert project. The videos, in which movement, he combined visual art Nasjonalmuseet for kunst, arkitektur og design NATT&DAG Schnitzler worked with the lighting and music, and later to an increasing Nationaltheatret and movement of black and white degree performance, video and music. NISS (Nordisk Institutt for Scene og Studio) NODE Berlin Oslo objects, are produced in the simplest In the 1960s he moved to western Nordisk Kulturfond way possible, without cuts or the Berlin where he was among the Nord-Trøndelag Teater Norsk folkemusikksamling use of effects, and are reminiscent founders of the influential concert Norsk komponistforening of Hans Richter’s films or László venue for experimental music, Zodiak Norsk kulturfond Norsk kulturråd Moholy-Nagy’s light-based works. Free Arts Lab as well as the band Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart The six accompanying composi- Kluster. In Norway Schnitzler is best nyMusikks komponistgruppe OCA, Office for Contemporary Art Norway tions are based on 50 cassette tapes known for having contributed to the Oslo domkirke that Schnitzler produced for his cas- black metal band Mayhem’s debut Oslo kommune Oslo Konserthus sette project, where he made record- album Deathcrush with the composi- Oslo kulturnatt ings of each of the individual voices tion Silvester Anfang. PechaKucha Oslo Riksscenen that make up an orchestra, cassettes Rockefeller being the simplest and cheapest The exhibition is curated by Carsten Seiffarth Scandic Hotels and arrangements by Wolfgang Seidel. recording method at the time. When Sentrum Scene Sparebankstiftelsen DNB Schnitzler died in 2011 he left more Studio 4.99 than 800 hours of material from this Sveriges ambassade i Oslo Teatermuseet project, but practical and financial Teatersalen, Bondeungdomslaget i Oslo constraints meant that only the 50 Universitetet i Oslo, institutt for musikkvitenskap Universitetsbiblioteket cassettes were ever produced — the Universitetets aula cassettes that the compositions in this Utenriksdepartementet Verdensteatret Vulkan Arena