The artistic potential of the stumbling block

In the classical music world, we usually work with an artistic idea and its unfolding from its own perspective. What happens if we reverse the process and work with the idea from the context, here exemplified by the intended audience and the context of the artistic idea? Does this limit the artistic development of the material, making it a 'light' version, or can it, on the contrary, be rewarding for the development of the material?

Christina Holm Dahl has spent 10 years collecting repertoire within new composition music for a solo concert for singer. The concert itself and parts of it have been performed regularly in new music circles with a built-in understanding of the works and the special tonal language and performative element. This fascination with the solo concerto originally stems from Christina's premiere and subsequent many performances of Peter Maxwell Davies' solo opera The Medium, which she has toured with in high schools. At the time, Christina found the meeting with the young people incredibly rewarding, and the subsequent conversations about the work provided many good reflections on both sides. At the same time, it was clearly a meeting between two very different worlds that could benefit from being mediated.

Perhaps art formats can create the opportunity to combine the communication of the extensive subject matter with room to wonder?

The project here is to explore two things in parallel and in interaction:

1. Can art formats create the opportunity to combine the communication of a comprehensive subject matter with room to wonder? What are the pitfalls and what are the strengths?
2. An entrepreneurial angle: If the project is developed directly for a target group, one could imagine that it would be more financially sustainable, but how is it done in a relatively narrow artistic field in an artistically valid way?

The ambition was to select, put together and perform a program of works for solo singing from a larger back catalogue for a concert/performance-lecture for high school students. It should focus on the human voice in music, especially the more experimental and performative part. It had to match the high school curriculum and framework. It had to be good communication for that particular target group. And it still had to be a strong artistic statement with room to wonder, i.e. no 'light' versions.

Process:

After a long process of studying high school music curricula and interviews with a number of professionals (Hanne Kragelund, high school teacher and educational director at Favrskov Gymnasium, Barbara Simonsen, dramaturg and artistic director of Teater Seachange, Jesper Gottlieb, producer of Levende Musik i Skolen and Peter Kunz, educator at Skuespillerskolen), work began on creating a performance talk built for this situation. A 2-hour repertoire catalog was boiled down to just one work and the working title was The artistic process from the idea of a work to the premiere, seen from the musician's perspective. The work discussed is an 8-minute solo written for Christina Holm Dahl by composer Hans-Henrik Nordstrøm in 2018, entitled Nocturnos de la ventana to a poem by Federico Garcia Lorca, premiered at Suså Festival 2018.

The content of the performance talk is structured based on the method Mapping, which is a mapping of a process. Everything is included in the initial mapping, then the most important stories are selected and a script is written, including spoken texts, text improvisational elements, movement and music.

The premiere took place in October 2019 at Favrskov Gymnasium. The performance talk was performed 3 times, for different grade levels and music levels. It was followed by a dialog between performer and high school students. The evaluation showed that for both the high school students and their educator, exactly the desired space of wonder was created, while at the same time covering a very large subject area and creating entry points for further work on more in-depth areas of the subject matter.

The performer experienced a much closer encounter with their audience than in traditional formats.

It would be natural to further develop and test the principles of constraints and the mapping technique in other areas.

• Performances Performance talk at Favrskov Gymnasium October 2019
• Performances Performance talk at DNA of Music for visiting high school students 2019 + 2020
• Presentation of the entire project at Odense Music Library and at DNA of Music (DNA of Music) 2019 + 2020

Teaching program at DNA of Music at soloist level about the potential of Benspændets in March 2021

Article:

Hanne Kragelund & Christina Dahl: A peek into the engine room - a performance talk for high school students

In conversations with a variety of artists, Christina Holm Dahl explores the constraint and its artistic potential. The constraint is the deliberately difficult, the self-chosen and the imposed. They are possibilities and they are limitations. What they all have in common is that they are fascinated by the constraint and its inherent complexity.

Podcast: Lars Nielsen Sardeman and KorImpro
The first episode is a conversation with organist and cantor Lars Nielsen Sardemann about his project KorImpro. KorImpro challenges church music and the traditional role of the church choir singer. Read more about Lars and the project at www.sardemann.dk

Podcast: Ursula Wyller and Korteater Boreas
In the second episode, Christina Holm Dahl talks to dramaturge Ursula Wyller, director of Boreas Korteater. Korteater Boreas works with a combination of choir and theater work and often in close physical contact. During the corona period, this became a pervasive constraint that Ursula and Korteater Boreas managed to turn into an artistic exploration, but not without great challenges.

Read more at http://boreas-korteater.dk, where you can also watch the videos we talk about along the way.

Podcast: Barbara Simonsen and the concept of constraints
The third conversation is with dramaturge and director Barbara Simonsen. Barbara has been conducting performing arts research for many years, so the constraint is a fundamental working method for her. Nevertheless - or perhaps because of this - we asked each other the question: What do YOU really understand by the concept of constraint? Hear about it and what can come out of giving yourself the constraint of working in and with nature.

Read more about Barbara and her work at https://www.teaterseachange.dk

Podcast: Saul Saks and conducting children
For anyone who works with Saul Saks, it's obvious that the constraint is automatically at play in his projects - but for Saul it's not necessarily conscious, but more a way of being in the world. It's something that happens automatically, it's the type of project that fascinates him. In this episode, we talk about the Children's Conductor project, but also about a youth orchestra that came to Carnegie Hall and how that project still influences Saul's work.

You can read more about Saul Zaks at www.saulzaks.com

Podcast: Asbjørn Damgaard Faleide and Orkesterefterskolen
In the fifth episode, we talk to Asbjørn Damgaard Faleide, principal of Orkesterefterskolen. Orkesterefterskolen creates an environment that is ideal for young musicians to develop in. At the same time, some of them have been playing their instrument since they were young and others for a very short time. The school also functions as a regular after-school program. How to make it work and still be able to engage with classical music and orchestral works is of course a very special challenge, which the school's principal Asbjørn Damgaard Faleide talks about in this section.

Read more about Orkesterefterskolen at www.orkesterefterskolen.dk

Podcast: Christina Holm Dahl and the constraints
This time the table is turned and it is Christina herself who is interviewed about her own project, where the artistic process surrounding the creation and first performance of a new work for solo singer became material for a performance talk for high school students. The interview also discusses her other reflections after the interview series and where the journey is now heading. Along the way, the process of mapping is mentioned, which means mapping and is a process for creating an overview of one's own work without pre-judging what is relevant and what is unimportant. The interviewer is dramaturg Barbara Simonsen from Teater Seachange and Seachange Lab.