SPOR Festival Thursday 4th May – Sunday 7th of May

By choosing Edward Jessen as curator the SPOR Festival has found someone that understands the essence of music: sound and what makes sound into music. According to John Cage sound becomes music on its being heard specifically as sound and not as a signal (a peep can be a signal of a bird, a horn a signal of a car, a gentle humming in high grass and in the background a subdued rhythmic scratching can be a signal of a grasshopper by the wayside). A tone is a special sound that doesn’t signal anything except music ... But throughout history music has gradually built up so much signal value that by the end of the 1800’s it was possible to tell stories within music: here a lover begs for forgiveness, here is fury, here comes a flock of wild horses and so on. Edward Jessen and SPOR Festival is focussing on the ability of sound to tell its own story. It rises and falls, it spreads, it attempts to collect itself but doesn’t quite manage it. It flows, it explodes. There are many composers for whom this is the most important thing of all: going on a journey of discovery in sound, tone, rhythm and movement. SPOR is focussing on them in 2006.

It is a paradox that hearing music on the premises of the sound alone it becomes present for the listener. Freed of signals one is able to hear it anew and this can become a metaphor for life processes the listener hasn’t been been aware of up to that point.

American Alvin Lucier and British Roger Marsh are two exponents with each their focus on the inner trails of music. They are SPOR Festival’s featured composers in 2006. Read more about them on the website.

Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen is a Danish composer working a great deal with musical structure. Structurally his music is a world to immerse yourself in but in this tightly controlled universe signals appear from both historical music and the real world. It is a music that often plays with the contradictions between signals and a tight, captivating form. The concert with Ars Nova and Paul Hillier will be a mini portrait of Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen.

Ensemble Black Hair with Roger Marsh, Århus Sinfonietta with Søren K. Hansen, Ars Nova with Paul Hillier, Concert Clemens with Carsten Seyer-Hansen and vocal soloists John Potter, Richard Wistreich, Kerry Andrew, Anna Molyneux, Sarah Dacey, Anna Myatt and Joseph Marsh will be appearing at the festival, amongst others. There will be a seminar with Roger Marsh and film showings every evening at the Øst for Paradis cinema as well as sound installations by Alvin Lucier.