new media center_kuda.org

New in Popular Music # 1: Andrea Belfi

Report from the workshop held at the Youth Center CK13 (April 14-18, 2017)

As part of the music cycle "New in Popular Music", we had the opportunity to host Italian musician and composer Andrea Belfi. The residency included a solo performance of material from the new album "Ore" and a workshop with local musicians Sava Botić and Dimitrije Jakovljević, on the creation of improvised music for the film. Belfia's solo performance was on April 15, and the group performance of music for the film was on April 18 at CK13.

The challenges of group work were not in the realm of sensibility (on the contrary) but in the effort to improvise to “respond” to Maya Deren’s films: Meshes of Afternoon (1943), At Land (1944) and Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946). The films served as visual templates for the common ground of musicians' creation, and this framework raised several questions: how does the film's suggestiveness affect the creative process and interaction, does improvisation "adapt" to the film, and is it possible to talk about improvisation at all? within the existing narrative of the film. In the context of these issues, the trio recorded several sessions, both in studio conditions without an audience and in front of an audience.

"New in Popular Music" questions the relationship between contemporary and new popular music. Although popular music may have commercial potential to the detriment of the quality of musical expression, innovation and participation, it in turn exudes autonomous tendencies in musical creativity. Taking into account this ambiguity, the project seeks to mark progressive tendencies in contemporary music by hosting composers and musicians who are active at the crossroads of contemporary popular and so-called. serious music. By implementing these tendencies through performances, workshops and talks, we want to open new spaces of music research and production, and to encourage actualization and contextualization through re-examining the current situation on the local music scene.

The project is being implemented in cooperation with the Youth Center CK13 and the New Media Center for_kuda.org.