Whose Music? Developing new works within combined professional / non-professional settings

Whose music? Developing new works within combined professional/non-professional settings

When professional musicians and non-professionals create work together, questions naturally come up: Whose voice shapes the piece? Who owns the result? How do you build something collaborative without losing your own artistic identity – or theirs? This session digs into these and other questions through real projects, providing practical insight into what participative music-making can look like in practice.

Your guide for the session

John Harris is the Festival Director of New Music Dublin in Ireland and the CEO and Artistic Director of Red Note Ensemble in Scotland. The work of these organisations takes place in many contexts and in partnership with many organisations, including broadcasters, concert halls, orchestras, choirs, music ensembles and individual performers. It also takes place with those who make their living from making music as well as non-professionals coming a range of different communities. 

John will discuss three Red Note projects that have been created through the joint work of professionals with community participants:

• FLOCK, 30-minute piece with a strong visual element, created for children and families of all ages
• An Easterhouse Children's Manifesto (aka A Children's Guide to Anarchy) – winner of an Ivor Novello Award
• Flow – a project still in development, co-created with people living with dementia and their carers

If time allows, he will digress to include the long-running New Music Dublin participation project The Totally Made-Up Orchestra.

If you are interested in community-based work, hearing how these projects were built – and what questions arose along the way – offers a real-world model to learn from.

The ULYSSES Platform proposes online seminars directed to young artists, focusing on specific topics related to the development of their international career. For each meeting, an invited speaker shortly presents a specific topic, and opens the floor to give the participants the occasion to discuss this topic together, to address questions and share their personal experiences. At the end of each meeting, an « Open Space » allows some of the participants to present their own projects and to exchange with their fellow artists.