The Contemporary Music Centre is to participate in a major European initiative designed to encourage the exchange of repertoire between countries and to develop audiences for new music. CMC will be the lead Irish Partner in the New Music: New Audiences project, with Crash Ensemble and The Galway Music Residency and the ensemble in residence, ConTempo Quartet as the participating Irish Ensembles.
Over the next two years, New Music: New Audiences will involve 17 countries, 16 national music organisations and 31 ensembles and orchestras cooperating intensively across borders for the purposes of researching and developing new concert forms and new ways of disseminating contemporary music. The Contemporary Music Centre will be supported by Culture Ireland as it takes part in this large-scale European cultural project. During the first six month of 2013 this major initiative will feature as part of Ireland’s EU Presidency Culture Programme.
Over the course of the project, the 31 ensembles will form ‘working groups’, performing the music of each other’s countries and meeting to share experience and collaborate creatively on new ways to present concerts and engage with audiences. The result will be a series of concerts across Europe, beginning in the spring of 2013.
Participating European ensembles include Athelas Sinfonietta (DK), Avanti! Chamber Orchestra (FI), Court Circuit (FR), ensemble recherche (D), Klangforum Wien (AUT) and London Sinfonietta (UK).
Participating ensembles will each provide a selection of works by composers from their countries, as well as sharing their experience of presenting new music in new settings. As a result, more than 100 contemporary works will be circulated between European partners. It is hoped that the project will create increased exposure for the music of Irish composers across Europe, whilst also creating opportunities for Irish audiences to hear new European works.
New Music: New Audiences has arisen out of the ongoing search to develop and engage with new audiences in contemporary music, whether through the inclusion of other art forms or performance in non-traditional spaces, with producers reassessing the act of performance in the 21st century.
The project aims to strengthen the concert experience and define new concert forms that are in tune with a contemporary audience. The 31 ensembles, which include many of Europe’s most talented musicians, will engage in more than 50 concerts, each prepared in close collaboration with other participants in the project. Though different in style and size, the ensembles share a devotion to contemporary European art music, and a strong desire to engage a new audience for this music.
New Music: New Audiences will be officially launched at a conference attended by all the participants on 24-25 October in Brussels during the World Music Days.
