About Open Form

” How does a classical musician create music from a line and a dot? ”

Else Olsen S. continues:

“In Open Form pieces, choices usually linked to the composer are instead entrusted to the musician. Unnecessary limits are removed and the true interpreter comes forward. The musicians needs totaly different metods and techniques than those offered in the traditional music education, and meets different challenges than those in traditional pieces.

In a metaphoric way; when I perform a traditional piece, my mission is to portray a rose in the way the composer gave it to me. In an open form piece, the composer only hands me a seed! I don’t know what kind of plant it will grow…”

THE FESTIVAL

Open Form. is a festival for open form, aleatoric music and musicology. The focus is on music with open elements - graphical scores, improvisation, cooperation between the composer and the musician - and the meeting between the performing and the academic approach to the Open Form concept.

Guest at the festival is composer and performer Pauline Oliveros (1932). She is a pioner on electronic music, improvisation, musicology and open form-composing.  This makes her an important historical link to the open form-movement from the 50´s and towards our days.
Pauline Oliveros’ life as a composer, performer and humanitarian is about opening her own and others’ sensibilities to the many facets of sound. Since the 1960’s she has influenced American Music profoundly through her work with improvisation, meditation, electronic music, myth and ritual. She is widely known for her accordion playing with electronics using her Expanded Instrument System (EIS).  She also founded Deep Listening Institute, Ltd. in 1985 to encourage others in the practice of Deep Listening for creativity and heightened awareness of sound and sounding.  Many credit her with being the founder of present day meditative music. All of Oliveros’ work emphasizes musicianship, attention strategies, and improvisational skills.  Recently Columbia University announced Pauline Oliveros the first woman composer to receive the distinguished William Schumer award which will include a retrospective concert in March 2010.

SHORT HISTORY THE OPEN FORM MOVEMENT

Open form is a movement which has its origin in the New York School in the fifties and sixties in different arts of music, literature, dance and visual arts. Important composers and performers John Cage, Morton Feldman, Earle Brown, David Tudor and Christian Wolff. Pauline Oliveros formed her own school within Open Form and founded Deep Listening Institute. Open Form composing and performing is specially concerned with the question of freedom and experiment. The music has a freedom that either is in the composition itself, in the performance or in both.