Do it anyway was the theme of this year’s SPOR festival and title of the mini seminar it hosted on the topic. Johnathan Marmor, a New York composer and programmer with a day job at Spotify, filled us in on the motivations behind holding hackathons and their ever increasing popularity in the tech world over the last decade. Travis Just and Kara Feely from the Object Collection expanded on how they’ve chosen to focus on the process of creation itself rather than finely tuned works. Given the increasing difficulties related to funding and managing complex projects they’ve embraced a strategy of simply producing as much as they can as quickly as possible and relying on the accumulative effect of continually getting stuff out there.
David Bird's Fields on the Godsbanen roof
At the other, more 'composed' end of the spectrum the festival presented the Cikada Quartet playing Niels Rønsholdt's Americana and Regin Petersen's Soundtrack to self (featuring Nicolai Worsaae) in addition to festival curator Jennifer Walsh's semi-theatrical Marlowe S.
The Cikada Quartet play Niels Rønsholdt's "Americana"
One body, four selves was the title of the concert and it explored the way in which a formation as traditional as the string quartet could be approached in new ways. Drawing inspiration from American folk music Niels Rønsholdt treated the four instruments as one super-instrument with the quartet as a kind of 16 stringed guitar. Jennifer Walsh took the opposite approach, emphasizing individuality by spreading the instrumentalists out over the stage and incorporating both theatrical elements and electronic sounds. Regin Petersen opened up a Skype call to fellow composer Nicolai Worsaae, and through hypnosis probed his musical subconscious on music for string quartet which Cikada brought to life before the ears of the audience. An example of the kind of collaboration and friendly support typical of the Danish New music scene.
The concert was followed by a panel discussion with Cikada and the composers moderated by Karl Aage Rasmussen.
Panel discussion with Cikada, Jennifer Walshe, Niels Rønsholdt, Regin Petersen and Karl Aage Rasmussen
All in all the festival presented a broad palette of musical approaches and though it's mini seminar and panel discussions helped clarify the various artistic strategies adopted in dealing with the challenges of the modern cultural landscape. Tradition and technology are both embraced and questioned as the artists forge their way ahead.