Symposium

ARTMUSFAIR 2009

Where: City Halls, Candleriggs, Glasgow

When: 29 October 2009 - 01 November 2009

Times: Friday 29 October 2pm -3.30pm

Shaping the future of contemporary music 

ARTMUSFAIR/2009 was presented by the European Composers’ Forum (ECF) in partnership with the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA). Aimed at contemporary classical composers and professionals working in the contemporary music sector from all over Europe, it was planned to coincide with the 75th birthday celebrations of composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and held in Glasgow, UNESCO City of Music. The ECF is representative of composer organisations in 28 European countries and ARTMUSFAIR was billed as aiming “to encourage music stakeholders to integrate more contemporary music repertoire into the framework of classical music programming in Europe.”

On Friday 30 October a whole day of conference sessions took place with the aims of building new and closer partnerships, exchanging new music ideas, and sharing latest best-practice examples of innovation in the contemporary music world. The subject areas covered public service broadcasting, the commissioning of music by orchestras and ensembles, arts funding and copyright.

The ABO presented a session, A manifesto for contemporary classical music – five years on, chaired by Susannah Simons (BBC). Mark Pemberton, ABO, reminded delegates of the ABO 2004 symposium New Music: A Concordant Approach, which had been dedicated to developing a shared manifesto for contemporary classical music.  He presented some statistics on commissions and premieres to demonstrate what progress had been made in the past five years.  In 2008/2009 there were 130 commissions and 138 premieres, compared with 46 commissions and 91 premieres in 2003/2004. The difference may be because five years ago orchestras were commissioning approximately 25% of the premieres they performed and in 2008/09 they have commissioned the majority of works they premiere.

The Panel gave a range of examples of collaborative working with composers e.g the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s current project working with young composers, and the London Sinfonietta’s ‘Light the Blue Touch Paper’ project that nurtured emerging composers. Composer Anna Meredith provided three different ways of working with orchestras – straight commissioning, developing a commission with the composer, composer-initiated projects. Thorbjoern Thonder Hansen described an EU-funded project, ‘re:new music’ involving 22 ensembles from 11 European countries including the London Sinfonietta and Hebrides Ensemble which aimed to provide opportunities for further performances of existing works. They were also looking at existing commissioning schemes to see if they could be adapted to transnational commissioning projects. Panellists Gavin Reid, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Andrew Cornall, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra agreed that the project could be expanded to include orchestras. A comparison was made with businesses which have to invest in research and development to survive and agreement that cultural organisations similarly need to invest in artists, composers and musicians.  There was consensus about finding projects for collaborative commissioning, time for sharing artistic ideas and funding time for composers and orchestras to develop work together.