Proposal: The recontextualization of familiar melodies in the field of ‘open-form improvisation’

Mark Schimmel

My PhD topic investigates the recontextualization of familiar melodies in the field of ‘open-form improvisation’ (Borgo, 2022). Through these recontextualizations, I am challenging the plasticity of songs in a solo guitar setting and signing my own ‘personal listening’, (Szendy, 2008), an invitation to ‘listen with my ears’! My aesthetic outcomes challenge the exchange between the ideas from ‘Western pop music’ and ‘Western contemporary art music. In the project, the improvised and recontextualized material undergo simultaneous processes of deterritorialization and reterritorialization, mutually influencing one another without fixed hierarchical relationships.  

Musically, I am very inspired by the solo guitar recordings by Mary Halvorson, Derek Bailey and Marc Ribot, I heavily draw on their concepts. In the video, I will experiment with ‘The long and winding road’ by The Beatles. I aim to apply different approaches of artists mentioned above, so differing outcomes can be scrutinized. I will add the name of each approach while it’s being played. I aim to edit the video in such a way that the different outcomes can be heard next to each other. In addition to this, I will transcribe my own playing, and let my transcription move along simultaneously with the music.

Proposal: Creating with the composer– performer as composer 

Márton Szives

As a performer, I collaborate annually with five to six contemporary composers on new works in which we develop novel instrumental techniques, performance possibilities, or thematic concepts. As a result, I premiere between five and ten new compositions each year, interpreting composers’ ideas through my own performance language. I am currently facing an especially exciting challenge: composer Gyula Bánkövi has asked me to compose the instrumental part to accompany his electronic track, thereby co-creating an electroacoustic work, however I have never written more than exercises or etudes for myself. 
Within my artistic research for C21MP, I will document the collaborative process between composer and performer compelled into a compositional role, examining how these positions interact and influence one another. Specifically, I ask: how can a performer fulfil a purely acoustic ideological framework while simultaneously engaging in composition? 
Using practice diary, video diary, reflective journalism, and interview (with Bánkövi), I will trace the creation of a section of the work, documenting how the instrumental part (Szives) translates the conceptual material of the electronic track (Bánkövi) into an instrumental language and a written score. The outcome will be a journal-style paper of the creative process, also materialised in score and recordings (video or audio), offering insight into collaborative authorship and performer-led compositional practice in contemporary electroacoustic music.