Ultima Academy: Tonal War

[Bilde]

Ultima Academy is a series of talks, lectures and panel discussions and is free and open to anyone interested in knowing more about the ideas that underlie this year’s festival programme.

Rolf Wallin
Jan Swafford
Sudesh Adhana
Rob Young (moderator)

Whether it’s Beethoven’s Eroica, Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, Britten’s War Requiem or Steve Reich’s WTC 9/11, music has always tried to respond to the war and conflicts in surrounding contemporary world. At the same time musicians are often at war with themselves – struggling with their own complex personalities and with the pressure to innovate or break through limitations. And finally, sound has been fighting its own battles in the past century. New technologies, rival tuning systems and the public’s altered listening habits and expectations have cut the body of contemporary music to shreds.

In Tonal War, Ultima ventures onto the battlefield to ask how today’s composers and musicians can develop a musical language that can deal with the horrors of the 21st century. Speakers include Rolf Wallin, whose Strange News (2007) was inspired by the phenomenon of African child soldiers; US composer and author Jan Swafford has documented Beethoven’s internal anguish and has himself composed memorial music for the casualties of America’s wars. Choreographer Sudesh Adhana is concerned with art’s ability to confront terror: his latest performance confronts a real-life terrorist incident involving the assassination of a Norwegian actor by Islamist extremists.

This panel will debate the combat-readiness of modern music, or whether it still needs some basic training.

Free entrance!

In collaboration with Norwegian Society of Composers.

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