A. Sterkfontein Composers Meeting

Transcription

1 A. Sterkfontein Composers Meeting The Sterkfontein Composers Meeting is a masterclass for composers, both young and emerging composers as well as professionals, held at the Nirox Foundation. It was established to fill the need for a creative space where cutting edge composers from both academic and non-academic environments could share ideas and develop work together, with some of the best international new music specialist performers in residence. The unique setting provides the ideal environment in which this can be facilitated. Under the direction of Michael Blake and with a guest faculty of performers/composers, the daily programme includes time for composing, workshopping of pieces by the performers, seminars, presentations, individual tutorials and informal discussions. Guest lecturers have included Paul Hanmer and Jean-Pierre de la Porte. As Nirox artists in residence, the faculty is based at Nirox, and the composers stay in nearby peaceful surroundings, where they can work before and after attending the daily meetings at Nirox. Participants are required to submit a newly composed short work to the performers in advance, and then have a chance to develop it in the course of the meeting. All the pieces receive a performance at an informal concert for an invited audience on the final day of the meeting. A number of the compositions produced at the meetings have drawn inspiration from the surroundings and in some cases directly from the Cradle of Humankind, which the composers and musicians always visit in the course of their stay.

2 Artists in Residence : X[iksa]: Yasutaka Hemmi (violin) and Takayo Matsumura (harp) Japan 2013: Friedrich Gauwerky (cello) Germany

3 2015: Axelsson-Nilsson Duo: Ivo Nilsson (trombone) and Jonny Axelsson (percussion) Sweden 2017: Axelsson-Nilsson Duo - Sweden

4 Wider Reception 2013: Meditation on Mid-Eye-Tation by Samora Ntsebeza performed in Japan (Tokyo and Matsue) by Yasutaka Hemmi and Takayo Matsumura. Model of Sterkfontein Composers Meeting used for a one-week composers workshop in Matsue, with Blake, Hemmi and Matsumura. 2015: Pool by Pierre-Henri Wicomb, Resonance by Lloyd Prince and Sol Amphibious Déjà Vu by Samora Ntsebeza performed in Sweden (Stockholm and Visby) by Ivo Nilsson and Jonny Axelsson. Some of the composers, with Blake, Nilsson and Axelsson presented an afternoon-long seminar for student composers at the Gotland School of Composition. 2017: Works created at Nirox to be performed by Axelsson-Nilsson Duo at the Purpur festival, Youngblood Gallery, Cape Town. Co-venturers 2012: Japan Foundation, Embassy of Japan, Johannesburg International Mozart Festival, SAMRO (Southern African Music Rights Organisation) 2013: Culture Ministry of North Rhine Westphalia, KEMUS Stellenbosch University, SAMRO 2015: Society of Swedish Composers, Distell Foundation for the Arts, Visby International Composers Centre, Gotland School of Composition, TOMS (percussion instruments), Nirox Projects, The Orbit 2017: Musikverket, AfricaOpen, Purpur Festival, Youngblood Gallery B. Michael Blake: Composition Projects at Nirox My work comes from a strongly conceptual background, for example some of my earliest pieces are graphic scores or kits. ( Five Pieces for Piccolo and Tuba (1971) only received its premiere in 2015, but will now also be issued in a limited edition of five copies in collaboration with The Book Workshop.) Both the Richard Long-inspired work and the collaboration with Willem Boshoff came about because of my residencies at Nirox and Pentimenti, a piece in which the painting technique of the title is applied to the score itself, was appropriately premiered at Nirox. The score of Standing Stone Circle contains photographs I took at Nirox during the time I worked on the piece. I recorded events or observations each day with my camera, and their function in the score is to replace the customary verbal interpretive instructions to the performers.

5 During our stay at Nirox in 2012, Boshoff and I visited the quarry where his images were taken and for me this added a new layer to the work in progress. Plans which we eagerly made in the quarry for presenting the work in situ, to the extent of bringing in musicians and a grand piano, erecting large screens for the projections, etc had to be abandoned when a decision was taken to redevelop the site.

6 My most recent piece created at Nirox, Alto Trombone and Vibe, takes the Cradle of Humankind as a starting point: trying to imagine what kind of music early hominids might have made. Although there is only speculation about this, I did for example begin by having the cloth-covered vibraphone played with stones found at the Cradle. In the end this became totally impractical for the kind of music I wanted played, but it was exciting to have the chance to experiment one of the possibilities of the composers meeting - and ultimately to produce music that retained some link with the site. In 2017 I plan to make a second piece for the Axelsson-Nilsson Duo and thus further explore the Cradle.

7 My Engagements with Nirox as Artist in Residence (Jan-Feb): Standing Stone Circle (after Richard Long) for harp and peripatetic violinist. Score completed August 2013 in Visby (Sweden) and premiered November 2013 in Tokyo by X[iksa]: Yasutaka Hemmi (violin) and Takayo Matsumura (harp) artists in residence at Nirox, (Oct): Scoring Boschpoort collaboration with Willem Boshoff. Two Druid Walks made in the quarry at Boschpoort Farm, Belfast (Mpumalanga). Music titled Piano Concerto No 2 for piano and seven instruments (flute, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, violin, viola and cello), premiered in October 2014 in Vienna by Ensemble Reconsil and recorded for CD. Music commissioned by MIAGI (Music is a Great Investment), South Africa. Visual presentation developed by Clearwater. 2013: Premiere of Pentimenti by Friedrich Gauwerky (solo cello) artist in residence at Nirox, Music commissioned by DOMUS (Documentation Centre for Music), Stellenbosch University to mark the centenary of the Stravinsky Le Sacre du Printemps premiere. 2014: Souvenir de Prague for two violins, cello and harmonium. 2015: Alto Trombone and Vibe. Score completed September 2015 in Bristol (UK) and premiered in October 2015 in Stockholm by Axelsson-Nilsson Duo: Ivo Nilsson (alto trombone) and Jonny Axelsson (vibraphone) artists in residence at Nirox, 2015.