impuls . Academy 2017

impuls . 10th International Ensemble and Composers Academy for Contemporary Music 2017 (10. - 21.2.)

Summary 2017

Tutors, Ensembles, Lecturers ... 2017

Participants 2017

Besides composers´ and instrumental classes, chamber music and ensemble work the impuls Academy always offers various special programs to its participants. Check a short summary here.

amongst others:

Composer participants of impuls have been able to learn more about the topic film+music and were invited to join a symposion on this topic. Combined with these offers a call for score was made for „L´Arrivée“, a short experimental film by Austrian filmmaker Peter Tscherkassky, who was - besides a representative of the future interpreters - also present at impuls to work with the composers.

This special program is part of a larger project initiated by impuls within the EU-Network Ulysses, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, developing new compositions for Peter Tscherkassky´s CinemaScope Trilogy.

The general idea and starting point of this project is the attempt to develop new definitions of musical spaces through happenings positioned on the borderline of concert, installation and performance.

Space arises out of sound, is defined by sound – and vice versa: sound develops into a translucent space, which is influenced and shaped again also by the site, which by itself again is defined also by its own sounds, noises and specific conditions for a performance.

But it is not only the space per se, but also the temporality of a site that is influenced and changed by sound and the sound´s own temporality.

A central point also for this special program is to work with what can be found at a specific site on spot, not to intrude and impose, and only carefully and gently interfere with what these sites unfold themselves, and to open up to new sounds that are already at least potentially existing at specific sites.

Out of nothing so to say a huge, but dense net of sound spaces is spreading and also hereby defines a city – places like windows in another time and another space.

Collaboratory was an 11-day intensive workshop for creative composer-performer-sound artists coached by Stefan Prins, with the following foci: * Developing your own work-in-progress (composition/installation/performance/…) * preparing a performance/presentation/installation of your work-in-progress at a final event at ESC, and participating in the work of your colleagues where necessary and possible * collaboratively developing and curating an overall dramaturgy/concept for the final event, in which all works are presented/performed * Collaboration is a crucial element of this workshop: the selected artists not only share one space and equipement, but they also share thoughts, energy, inspiration. This also has social and political dimensions.

A project of impuls co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union within the Ulysses-Network.

Algorithms That Matter (ALMAT) focused on the experimentation with algorithms and their embedding in live performances. Rather than conceiving algorithms as established building blocks (“live electronics”) or the formalisation of a compositional idea (“algorithmic composition”), the workshop looked at them as performing entities whose consequences are irreducible to models. Algorithms “matter” in the sense that matter and meaning cannot be distinguished, they may be moulded and they may unfold material in an ecosystemic way: Materials become a new source for transformation.

Klangforum Wien and conductor Enno Poppe worked on and discussed pieces with and by selected participants of the composition classes of the impuls Academy 2017.

impuls 2017 and Ensemble Schallfeld invited young composers to submit scores to be considered for rehearsals, reading sessions and partly also a public performance within the impuls Festival 2017.

Co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union within the Ulysses-Network.

With Trio Accanto impuls was hosting one of the most prestigious chamber music formations dedicated to contemporary music. The trio has premiered more than 70 works and offered the rare chance to participants of impuls 2017 to work with them.

Trio Accanto did a call for scores amongst the composer participants of impuls 2017. From the pieces handed in they then selected compositions to both work on and perform themselves, but also to be studied and presented by instrumentalists participating in the Academy.

Co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union within the Ulysses-Network.

This special program was an active collaboration between musicians and composers, where specifically a close communication between these two partners was explored and developed on several levels. Principle points of focus included active collaborative exploration of the accordion, notational issues, and improvisation on chosen sound fragments.

Anna D´Errico, pianist of Ensemble Interface, made a call for works written by participants of impuls 2017. Both pieces for piano solo and piano plus up to 2 additional instruments were welcome. The selected pieces have been worked on together with the composers during the Academy.

In addition to this, Mrs. D´Errico also offered a Workshop-Forum open to all participants of impuls – both instrumentalists and composers – to discuss the pieces worked on, highlighting aspects of piano writing (such as sound possibilities, extended techniques, notation, strategies to communicate musical ideas in the score) and approaching issues of contemporary piano playing.

Composer participants of impuls 2017 were invited to hand in scores either for 2 double basses or for double bass and electronics. The pieces selected were discussed, worked on and partly presented during the Academy.

As cooperation partner of impuls the Ernst Krenek Institute in Krems commissions a composition to a participant of the composition class at impuls also in 2017. After a three-week visit at the Institute in Krems and in depth study of composer Ernst Krenek, a piece for a chamber music ensemble is to be composed and in sequence premiered by Klangforum Wien.