Avant Avantgarde

What musical experiments came before the likes of Claude Debussy, Edgar Varèse or John Cage shook up the conventions of traditional music culture? The artists at the Zentrum für Aktuelle Musik – ZAM and fundacja 4.99 from Warsaw were teaming up for a joint musical expedition and organized five acoustic laboratories in Poland and Germany.
Cosmic organs, cat pianos and glass harmonicas are some of the unusual historic instruments, with which the musicians developed their own ideas. The project focused not so much on the performance practice of experimental music, but rather the playful treatment with the original ideas of the sound pioneers of the past. In order to conduct their musical experiments, the musicians met for several days to develop compositions, performance rules, choreographies, sound samples and computer programmes.
The laboratory has been transformed into a stage, and the audience was integrated in the live performances as part of the musical experiments. Lectures by the Polish sociologist Michał Libera accompanied the concerts. The project concluded with a “Mediabook”, presenting an overview of the pre-20th-century musical experiments and their impact on contemporary music.

Artistic directors: Marion Wörle, Maciej Sledziecki, Michał Libera (PL)
Artists: Dženana Aganspahic (BA), Burkhard Beins, Arturas Bumsteinas (LT), Lucio Capece (AR/D), Francesco Cavaliere (IT/D), Tomek Chołoniewski (PL),  Max Eastley (GB), Jean-Luc Guionnet (FR), Gamut ensemble: Marion Wörle aka Frau W, Maciej Sledziecki, CM von Hausswolff (SE), Gerhard Kern, Aleks Kolkowski (GB), Michał Libera (PL), Andrew Liles (GB), Magda Mayas, Ralf Meinz, Karolina Ossowska (PL), Mikołaj Pałosz (PL), Razen (BE): Kim Delcour, Brecht Ameel, Paul Garriau, Pieter Lenaerts, Paweł Romanczuk (PL), Spat‘Sonore (FR): , Steven Stapleton (GB), Thomas Tilly (FR), Jan Topolski (PL), Michael Vorfeld