The Politics of Open Scores

​

The Politics of Open Scores

​

​

CREATIVE TALK

by  

Cristina Cubells, stage director

 

 

COLLECTIVE PERFORMANCE

Michael Pisaro

Harmony Series (selected pieces)

by

Nataša Penezić, Alex Tentor, and students of the Faculty of Music

 

 

​

​

​

CREATIVE TALK by Cristina Cubells, stage director

In this talk, the author contextualizes the history of open scores in contemporary music from both aesthetic and political perspectives. Cubells will place special emphasis on the genre of open scores intended to be performed by ‘non-specialists’ and on the music currents who tried to tackle political ideas in their pieces, not only as a part of the content, but also in the medium itself.

 

Cristina Cubells holds a Ph.D. in Humanities and works as a stage director on projects that bring together theatre, contemporary music, and critical pedagogy. She currently teaches at the Catalonia College of Music in Barcelona and has lectured in Theatre and Philosophy of Education at the University of Charles III of Madrid. She has directed productions such as Projecte Grimm (Sala Beckett and The Abadía Theatre), Hi ha monstres que viuen per a la seva curiositat (The Great Theatre of Liceu), and Struwwelpeter (The Palace of the Arts and Canal Theatres). Her research and artistic practice explore disidentification, childhood, and dissensus within educational and performative contexts.

E-mail: ccubells@esmuc.cat

 

COLLECTIVE PERFORMANCE

Michael Pisaro – Harmony Series (selected pieces)
Collective performance by Nataša Penezić, Alex Tentor, and students of the Faculty of Music Harmony Series (Michael Pisaro, 2006) consists of 34 short pieces for a varying number of performers, inspired by fragments of poetry, including the poem The Locust Tree in Flower by William Carlos Williams. Michael Pisaro’s music takes advantage of the poetic possibilities of open scores to create a unique performance situation for the musicians. Following the composer’s simple written instructions of each piece, performers discover new ways to engage in music making as a group that go beyond traditional score-based practice, unfolding an aural landscape that invites deep listening from both performers and audience.

 

The Locust Tree in Flower
by William Carlos Williams

 

Among

of

green

 

stiff

old

bright

​

broken

branch

come

 

white

sweet

May

again

 

Nataša Penezić, D.M.A., is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade, where she teaches courses on the Development of Pianism and the Development of Performance. At the same Faculty, she defended her Doctoral artistic project titled The Interpretation of New Expressive Means in Selected Piano Works by Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio, and Frederic Rzewski in 2018. As a soloist and chamber musician, she has participated in various festivals in Serbia and Europe. She has performed with the KREDO orchestra of Moscow, the Chioggia Festival Symphony Orchestra, the Ensemble of the SYNC Centre Novi Sad, and Belgrade’s Muzikon Chamber Orchestra. She is dedicated to 20th- and
21st-century music and has actively collaborated with many composers, most notably Frederic Rzewski (1938–2021), Sofia Gubaidulina (1931–2025), Vladan Radovanović (1938–2023), Gavin Bryars, Miroslav Miša Savić, and Ana Gnjatović.

E-mail: penezicnatasa@gmail.com

 

Alex Tentor is a guitarist, sound artist, and musicologist specializing in new music both in his solo and chamber music career, as well as in the development of pedagogical approaches, lectures, and master classes. He has collaborated closely with international ensembles such as Shockwave, Schallfeld, Riot Ensemble, Collegium Novum Zürich, Vortex, Kommas, km² duo, UFA sextet, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Ensemble Bayona, and Vertex Container, under conductors including Peter Rundel, Ilan Volkov, Nacho de Paz, Leonhard Garms, and Jonathan Nott. As an active commissioner of new repertoire for his instrument, he has premiered works by Elena Rykova, Arturo Corrales, Bára Gísladóttir, Morgan Ågren, José María Sánchez Verdú, Jeeyoung Joo, Diego Jiménez Tamame, Aleksandra Bajde, Guillermo Cobo, and Avshalom Ariel, among others. Tentor has frequently co-created repertoires for his instrument and a micro-opera for the Great Theatre of Liceu with Itziar Viloria. His interest in electronics and coding has led him to offer collaboration on projects for groups such as FRAMES Percussion and pianist Carles Marigó. His current research focuses on the interplay between emergent patterns in data, artistic misuses of AI, and the performativity of the living body. Tentor combines his artistic practice with a teaching position as a Professor at the Catalonia College of Music in Barcelona.

E-mail: info@alextentor.com