Contemporary music constantly uses new material that is neither sound nor musical instruments. Movement, video, text, space, light, objects and leaks from real life all make deeper features in modern composition and contemporary music. Musicians and composers no longer work only with sound but extend themselves to various forms for an expanded material for composition and performance.
The Extended Composition project initiated and led by composer and professor at NMH, Henrik Hellstenius, asks some fundamental questions about which new composition and performance strategies must be developed to master this diversity of materials and expression. How to cope with the expanded possibilities and challenges that arise in the face of music's growing outer limits?
What does this extended composition add to the new layers of sound, speech, light, movement, language, objects and images? It changes how we read meaning into what we hear and see. This creates a diversity of sign systems that we have to deal with. Does this also change the meaning of music, what music can be and how it is understood? Is it even appropriate to think of such hybrids as musical compositions? How should we respond to such works, and how can we evaluate them?
The project's new works, texts and the participants
Extended composition's exhibition at the Research Catalog (RC) presents the three artistic works "The Hands. The Double", "Ensemble Studies", and "BLY", which are performed in collaboration between composers, musicians, dancers and other artists. The project's core group is Ellen Ugelvik, Tanja Orning, Christian Blom, Camilla Eeg-Tverbakk, and Henrik Hellstenius. The artistic works have been developed with dancers, choreographers, musicians and performers Kristin Ryg Helgebostad, Gry Kipperberg, Silje Aker Johnsen, Ali Djabbary, Cecilie Lindeman Steen and Helga Myhr.
Together with reflective texts about the artistic processes and the work to expand skills and materials, the website provides insight into recent developments in art music. Among the contributors in addition to the project group are Jennifer Walshe, Paul Creanen, Matthew Shlomowitz, Shila Anaraki and Øystein Elle.