Moving Classics
Pinquins perform 36,000 Years Alongside Baubo created in collaboration with Brice Catherin at Cycle Music and Art Festival 2015
UK, Iceland and Norway
2014 - 2016
Moving Classics - European Network for New Music (MCLASS) embraces the strong connection and long history shared between music and storytelling in the construction of identity beyond national borders. Inspired by regional musical, literary, poetic and artistic traditions, interpreted through the eyes of an outsider working in each host region the project delivered a series of festivals for showcasing new works, alongside workshops, master-classes and debates that connected participants with audiences.
Created with the intention of engaging modern audiences that may not have experienced contemporary classical music, MCLASS sought to reshape the perception of taught musicianship by showing its role in a shared European identity, embracing the emergent experience economy and moving the performance space from the concert hall to found spaces and the public realm. Inviting young up-and-coming composers to work with experimental ensembles and artists the project developed new ways of producing and presenting classical music.
MCLASS was established in 2014, growing out of Curated Place’s successful Collaborative Compositions project which supported young composers to work internationally with experimental ensembles to develop and perform new works. The first project allowed British composer Jack White to work with the Icelandic Kammerkor Sudurlands before premièring his new piece Ysonedd at Southwark Cathedral in 2013. Between 2013 and 2014 we expanded the project to three partner ensembles across the Nordic region with the support of KKNord enabling a British composer to work in Norway; a Swedish composer to work in Iceland and an Icelandic composer to work in the UK.
To form our successful application to the Culture Fund of the European Union we extended our production network to invite composers from anywhere in Europe to work with our partner ensembles Kammerkor Su-durlands (IS), Pinquins Percussion Trio (Nor) and Psappha (UK) under the direction of Curated Place (UK). We also worked closely with an Icelandic production team who would lead our main audience engagement vehicle Cycle Festival of Music and Art and also presented at two festivals in the UK at Spectra in Aberdeen and Enlighten Manchester. Cycle was established to showcase the compositions from the Moving Classics programme alongside the finest offerings of the contemporary avant-garde operating at the elite and exclusive end of the spectrum, whist our UK festivals successfully took the best of this work to more main-stream audiences.
To date we have shown more than 120 original works and enabled 10 composers to create new works through our tried and tested split-residency format whereby we nurture relationships between the collaborating artists by financing and supporting multiple visits over a six-month residency window. This ensures that true collaborative relationships are enabled to form and many participants have continued creating works together or with other MCLASS alumni having met at our events. We have also extended several of these works into installation pieces allowing multiple performances and financially viable touring works.
Supported by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, Arts Council England, Arts Council Norway, Kopavogur Council and SASS
