Listening Series – Sonic Borderlines

In three workshops, a rehearsal phase and three concerts, three ensembles will present music that integrates various new playing techniques across cultural sound boundaries. The concerts will consist of new works by various composers alongside some short pieces of classical music from the Arabic, Turkish and Indian traditions.

Contemporary music owes a great deal to non-European traditions in the 20th and 21st centuries on a theoretical level, but we can also learn much more from these traditions in terms of basic playing techniques, sound production, melodic ornamentation and phraseology. Sound production, vocal and instrumental techniques are still largely unexplored in Western musical practice because of the immutability of our concept of notes (on paper) in this respect. Most non-European classical traditions are characterized by a more fluid, ornate and flexible sound of voices, instruments and rhythm. In Indian, Turkish and Arabic music, sound production is based less on the concept of notes on a page and more on, for example, swaras (region of sound), or naghmas (originally referring to both „modulation“ and „singing“)

So the sound that marks each culture as distinctive is a matter of difference in the way these small individuals, our notes, swaras, perdes or naghmas are heard. It is a difference in the way they are discussed in music lessons, in the halls of conservatories, in all our cultural environments, that shapes our notion of the smallest structures of musical sound from birth, which for musicians are also a mirror of our own selves. Therefore, the question of listening to notes, of the fundamental production of sound, is a highly charged and even political question. It must be treated with the utmost care. „Decolonization“ is not a question of simple programming etc., but rather of attentive listening, the attempt to perceive beyond the imprinting that has taken place (including indoctrination) and to learn anew again and again by listening.

This process of radically different listening requires us to turn away from our „aesthetics“. It requires us to place the sound of other traditions on an equal footing, abandoning certain sonic concepts that come to mind immediately and without question. This way of listening is the only one that can truly transcend these normally insurmountable „sonic borderlines“. To this end, the concerts will also be accompanied by three workshops and this panel discussion.

In the three workshops, three special musicians will talk about the possibilities of using the unique qualities of the music of another tradition melodically and rhythmically. Bakr Khleifi is an accomplished Ud player, Merve Salgar is a virtuoso Tanbur player and Shanthala Subramanyam is an expert singer and flautist in South Indian music. The three have collaborated with many contemporary music groups and have incorporated their sounds into various contemporary compositions.

In these workshops, they will also explain the basic technique of their instruments, especially with regard to the differences in sound production, the sound component and the ability of swaras or naghmas to move in certain ways differently compared to European note approaches. This allows for increased awareness and dexterity in what in the Eurological tradition would be called „between the notes“ or „in the cracks“. The technical explanation is followed by a discussion of this difference.

WORKSHOP I Shantala Subramanyam: Sound Indian Music

April 26, 7:00pm

venue: KM28

Shantala Subramanyam was born in Bangalore and grew up in Chennai, the stronghold of Carnatic music, known for its improvisation on beautiful ragas in a highly developed rhythmic vocabulary. She plays the VENU, a Carnatic bamboo flute, which is an instrument with a warm sound. Like many Carnatic musicians, Shantala started playing music at an early age under the guidance of her father M N Subramanyam, who was an amateur musician himself, and her brother Shashank, an excellent flute artist. She was also fortunate to be taught by eminent artists – singer Sri. Vairamangalam Lakshminarayanan. She is currently undergoing vocal training with Sri O.S.Thyagarajan and Sri T V Gopalakrishanan. She is grateful to the famous South Indian drummers Trichur Sri.Narendran, Patri Satish Kumar and Parupalli Phalgun for imparting her rhythm training over a decade. Thanks to her diligent training and hard work, Shantala was highly appreciated for her melodic performances combined with complex rhythmic patterns. Today, she is considered an important and authentic voice in this demanding tradition, which is also confirmed by music critics.

CONCERT I: Swaras

April 26, 8:30pm

Venue: KM28

Cathy Milliken “Unswarad?”
Teerath Majumder “Lines that Divide, Lines that Connect”
Jeremy Woodruff “100 Foot Road Revisited”
Ramesh Vinayakam “[New Work]”

Shanthala Subramanyam, South Indian flute and vocal
Anirudha Bhat, mridangam / kunnakol
Theodor Flindell, violin
Theo Nabicht, bass clarinet
Jeremy Woodruff, sruti box

WORKSHOP II: Arabic Maqam and Oud

May 18, 7:00pm

venue: KM28

Bakr Khleifi was born in Jerusalem and received lessons from the renowned oud player Ahmad al-Khatib from the age of six. In the following ten years, his teachers on the oud included Simon Shaheen and Samir Joubran. He also learned the double bass at the age of 15 and became a member of Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra just one year later. He went on to study world music with a focus on the oud at the University of Gothenburg and completed a master’s degree in double bass at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University. Performances as a double bassist and oud virtuoso have taken him all over Europe, to his native Palestine, to North and South America and to Asia. He recently performed at the Pierre Boulez Saal together with recorder player Stefan Temmingh in the concert project Songs of Travel and as a lecturer in a digital learning program on the subject of Arabic song.

CONCERT II: Naghmas

May 18, 8:30pm

Venue: KM28

Cathy Milliken “[New Work]”
Jeremy Woodruff “[New Work]”
Mathis Mayr “[New Work]”
Bakr Khleifi “[Arrangement]”

Claudia van Hasselt, mezzosoprano
Mathis Mayr, cello
Bakr Khleifi, oud

WORKSHOP III: Ottoman Classical Makam and Tanbur

June 15, 7:00pm

venue: KM28

Born in Istanbul in 1990 Merve Salgar started studying tanbur (Turkish long-necked lute) with Sadun Aksüt at the ITU Turkish Music State Conservatory in 2004. Between 2008 and 2011, she worked as a tanbur player at TRT (Turkish Radio and Television Company). In 2011, she moved to Strasbourg and is currently pursuing her doctorate in musicology at the University of Strasbourg. Besides playing traditional Turkish music, as an improviser, she is always looking for new sounds. In 2016, she created the improvised music band „Savt“ with Zeynep Ayse Hatipoglu and Canfeza Gündüz. Their first album „Birinci Hane“ was released by AK Müzik in Istanbul. In 2018, she began playing duo with singer-songwriter Zoe Heselton. They recorded the album „Health to Your Hands“ and it was released by ‚Soleils Bleus‘ label. In 2020, she was a solo performer for Marina Abramovic’s exhibition „Akıs/Flux“ at Sakip Sabanci Museum in Istanbul. She currently plays with ensembles such as Orpheus XXI (w/Jordi Savall), SAVT, Karmanota, Sousta Politiki, Incredible Mektoub Orchestra, Dreieck interferences, Imbroglio, Klank.ist and collaborates with musicians from the improvised and traditional music scene. She is also a professor at CFPM (Centre de Formation Professionnelle de la Musique) and CEDIM (Centre d’Enseignement et de Développement de l’Improvisation Musicale) in Strasbourg.

PANEL DISCUSSION:

„Note Metaphors: Re-Learning Listening“

June 15, 8pm

Venue: KM28

„Decolonization“ is not a question of simple programming etc., but rather of attentive listening, the attempt to perceive beyond the imprinting that has taken place (including indoctrination) and to learn anew again and again by listening. It is concrete work that needs to be done if we want to change and open up the concert hall and ourselves.

When we hear a sound, we immediately and automatically categorize it according to race, ethnicity, etc.; for example, the sound of the tampura – when you hear this sound, a thousand Indian stereotypes immediately come to mind (for most people from Europe and America, among others). This is why composers have generally avoided using it so much. The principle is well explained in the book by Nina Eidsheim called „The Race of Sound“ 2019: you realize that our classical musical training (from childhood) in combination with our cultural environment is responsible for far more than just knowing how to play musical instruments and listen to music.

CONCERT III: Perdes

June 15, 9pm

Venue: KM28

Fulya Uçanok “[New Work]”
Margarete Huber “[New Work]”
Merve Salgar, Arrangement: “Ben melamet hırkasını (haydar haydar)”

Margarete Huber, soprano
Merve Salgar, tanbur