sommerakademie schloss solitude

7/28/2019 Sommerakademie Schloss Solitude

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CeReNeM Journal: Issue Two, Part Two

Timothy McCormack

Sommerakademie Schlo Solitude

That the Sommerakademie is particularly investedin cultivating an environment of communicationand dialogue becomes immediately apparent toany attendee, as the instructors waste no time inbeginning their project. In the orientation meet-

ing, Czernowin explains in no uncertain termswhy we have been chosen to attend and that theinstructors believe in us as composers. Going intoSchlo, which was my rst attendance at a sum-mer course, I was not expecting the students tobe welcomed with such open arms. In doing so,Czernowin immediately establishes a sense ofcommunity among the attendees and, consider-ing the comparatively small number of composers

who have attended the Sommerakademie over theyears, orients us within a meaningful tradition.

This is important as it preemptively shifted theclimate of the entire course. Its hard to deny that

when a small congregation of composers is assem-bled, the tone of the dialogue all too easily slipsinto defensive one-upmanship or unnecessarilypedantic criticism. At Schlo, and largely thanksto Czernowin and the other instructors, defenseof ones compositional choices could largely be by-passed in favour for a more productive and inter-

esting critical discourse.

*

On the Solitude grounds, there is a seventeenth-

century castle, the Rococo Castle Solitude, fromthe stairs of which one can see the city of Stuttgartin the distance. Behind the Academy buildings isa rather vast wooded area, which becomes pitchblack though not entirely un-navigable at night.

Inside the main building of the Academy, tuckedaway on the third oor, there is a small but excel-lent library, containing works of obscure German

writers (stopping just short of Benno von Archim-boldi) as well as even more obscure oddities of theliterary cult canon, such as Seranis oft-burgledCodex Seraphinianus1. In all of these places, onecan feel truly alone. However, these are the places the castle stairs, the woods at night, the library

where the group most became a community.

*

The schedule kept by attendees of the Sommer-akademie is rather demanding, with daily lec-tures, seminars, lessons, which are eventuallyreplaced by rehearsals, and multiple meetingsbetween students. These peer-on-peer meetingsare considered to be the foundation upon whichthe particular brand of pedagogy employed by theSommerakademie is based. Though the faculty

has scheduled meetings between students such

1 Which of course has been burgled since my time at theAcademy, reportedly.

Sommerakademie Schlo Solitude is rst and foremost about learning through communicationand dialogue. Perhaps one can say, and rightly so, that this is the purport of every summer course for

young composers, but at Schlo, it is clear that Chaya Czernowin and Steven Kazuo Takasugi, the Som-merakademies permanent faculty, have tailored the bi-yearly program around a pedagogy prioritis-ing communicative interaction and peer-to-peer learning. In fact, one gets the sense that the youngcomposers in attendance have been chosen not only for their craft, but also for their apparent ability oropenness to learn from their other colleagues in attendance. The goal, I believe, is to foster a supportivebut critical community based on shared experience rather than on location or musical style.


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that everyone is guaranteed to meet with at leasthalf of the others attending, it is expected that thestudents take it upon themselves to meet with theremaining half. However, by the third week, it be-came not simply an ingrained, but a preferred wayto spend ones free time, and I found myself meet-

ing with larger groups or with people two or some-times three times. These meetings allowed for theparticipating composers not only to understandeach others music more intimately, but they al-lowed opportunities for relationships to formamong the larger group. The sense of communityand shared purpose that these meetings fostered

was so crucial to the success of the overall course;by understanding who we were as individuals, we

were able to more immediately grasp who we wereas a group. We became open to learning from oneanother.

*

The year I attended, the visiting instructors wereMark Andr and Claus-Steen Mahnkopf2. In mylessons with the four teachers, the durations of

which were often generously well beyond the allot-ted time, I shared only one piece, a string quartetcalled The restoration of objects. However, it was

fascinating to see how each instructor was able touse it to discuss and explore totally dierent mu-sical concepts. The word explore is particularlytting, as the lessons with the instructors typicallyfelt like we were investigating something together;there was very little sense of a perhaps more typi-cal, hierarchical student-teacher dynamic where-by the teacher is there to impart wisdom upon thestudent.

With Mahnkopf I talked largely about nota-tion, notational seduction and the responsibil-ity a young composer has to himself; with Andr,the conversation was largely about the nature ofsound itself (my favorite Andr quote: What youare hearing right now is asound-situation.) and its organisation in time;

with Takasugi, the matters at hand were more ab-stract and, somehow, dire the topics of violenceand pain in music was discussed at length, as

was fear (as in fear of silence), as well as the rela-

2 This was the 2009 course. Past instructors include Rich-ard Barrett, Ole Ltzo-Holm and Machael Reudenbach.The 2011 visiting instructor is Amnon Wolman.

tionships between Space and Time together withSound and Music (said relationships seeming tobecome only more problematic the more they areexplored); with Czernowin, topics were somehowsimultaneously very grounded as well as highlyabstract and aesthetic: we talked about polyphony

as materialised energy within space, counterpointas a self-destructive force, amalgamating itselfinto oblivion, development and form existing ina musical fractal, etc Although the experience ofhaving undeniablyheavy daily lessons with a ro-tating cast of teachers should be overwhelming,there was a dynamic set up between them that wasdownright invigorating.

After an important lesson in a university context,a student typically has at least a week to digesteverything that was discussed and to understandhow, why and if it is signicant. At the Sommer-akademie, there is no time for such digestion. Thedaily lessons pile up on each other, and providematerial to sift through for the months and, in myexperience, years to follow. This may be the na-ture of the summer composition course beast, butit also follows the Schlo Solitude design: a resi-dency at the Solitude should be understood as aninvestment in the future; an investment that, for

both the participating artists and the institutions,may bear fruit much later3.

*

No discussion of the Sommerakademie SchloSolitude would be complete without mention ofthe ensemble in residence, Freiburgs EnsembleSurPlus. Having been a part of the Sommerakad-emie since its inception, and having had indi-

vidual relationships with each of the faculty com-posers since before that, the exible, adventurousensemble fully immersed itself in the spirit andpedagogy of the composition course. Schlo Soli-tudes preoccupation with peer-to-peer learninginforms and is strengthened by SurPluss uniquepedagogical relationships with the composers ofthe Sommerakademie. The musicians of SurPlusare not interested in simply telling the composers

what works and what does not, and the compos-ers who tend to come to Schlo Solitude are notinterested in easy answers. The goal is aimed more

3 www.akademie-solitude.de/110_institution_principles.php, accessed 26 May 2011.


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towards discovery and exploration, which againleads to a sense of community.

Based on what Ive gleaned regarding the relation-ship between musicians and student composers atmany other summer courses, I highly doubt that

I would have had the positive and productivelychallenging experience that I had with SurPlus atSchlo. The ensemble4 performed my aforemen-tioned string quartet, The restoration of objects,the extreme challenges presented in which be-come apparent with a cursory glance at any mea-sure of the piece (see Example 1, on page 4). Myrehearsals with SurPlus were extremely collabora-tive and largely discussion-based, sometimes evenmeeting without instruments. Much time wasspent simply trying to understand who we each

were as musicians, what my thoughts were on thepiece and what their goal was in learning it. I wentinto the rehearsal process anticipating that thegoal would be to prepare the piece simply to thepoint that it can be realised at a basic level, thoughI was met with a much more ambitious group ofmusicians who were more interested in shapingand understanding the piece such that they could

yield a personal and unique performance.

The SurPlus quartet gave one of the most stun-ning performances of any piece of mine that I have

witnessed, to say nothing of their two concerts ofthe fteen composers works, the corporeal andaural energy they were exerting was intensely vis-ceral and palpable while also having given me aparticularly meaningful, memorable and singularpedagogical experience. Like my aforementionedheavy lessons with the four instructors, I was ableto confront profoundly signicant compositional

questions and issues through working with Sur-Plus: the dierence between interpretation andexecution, the relationship and occasional dis-connect between mental processing and bodily/muscular memory, the possibilities of fusing bothprescriptive and descriptive notational paradigmsin an eort to speak more directly to the perform-ers experience, etc One thing that is more or lessaorded at summer composition courses that isntas common outside of them is a larger, more ap-propriate amount of time to interface and work

4 The performing musicians were Thomas Avery (violin),Beverly Ellis (violoncello), Stefan Hussler (violin) and Jes-sica Rona (viola).

with the performers of your music. However, I feelthat my extended time with Ensemble SurPlus

was used in a way unlike that of other summercourses. We were not simply rehearsing the pieceto get a good recording; we were trying to makemusic and forge a relationship, which strikes me

as being rather extraordinary.

It also strikes me as being what the Sommerakad-emie Schlo Solitude is all about: forging mean-ingful relationships and cultivating an interesting,supportive and critical community. The knowl-edge and experiences that I gained at the coursewere profoundly signicant to me, but the rela-tionships with other composers, colleagues andmusicians as a result of it is what has eected memost. I nd the relationships made by a composerare often too mediated by the nature of the profes-sional music world: interactions tend to be brief,frantic and professional (for example, at a festival,

where no one really has any time to truly interact).These reections on the Sommerakademie SchloSolitude may seem somehow rather sentimental,but if so, the possibility and space if aords for the

veryhuman response of sentimentality is a vitalpart of what makes it special.

Timothy McCormack is a PhD candidate atHarvard University where he studies with ChayaCzernowin. He studied at the University of

Hudderseld with Aaron Cassidy and Liza Lim,researching instrumental mechanism and physi-cality as compositional resources. He also at-tended the Oberlin Conservatory of Music wherehe studied with Lewis Nielson. In 2009, he wasawarded a stipend to attend the Schlo Soli-tude Sommerakademie, where he studied withChaya Czernowin, Steven Kazuo Takasugi, ClausSteen-Mahnkopf and Mark Andr. Upcom-ing performances of his works will take place atthe Transit Festival (Belgium), Dark Music Days

(Iceland), HCMF (UK) by the ELISION Ensembleand at Suginami Kokaidou (Japan) by RiekoManabe & Shungo Mise.


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Example 1:The restoration of objects, m.157

sommerakademie schloss solitude

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