In my compositions I try to create new worlds where the audience, the performer, all the listeners, me – the composer – become characters of the same dream. We both have to work in order to tear the veil of the real world. In this direction, I think that music is an art that has a great, but not fully used, potential. When is needed to talk about the so-called contemporary music or new music, people often seems quite suspicious or reluctant. I have the feeling that classical music has become more like a niche genre, something that is usually related to high-class societies, leaving behind the rest of the people. It is a matter of equality and inclusivity. A bachtrack reasearch shows how much the audience and the artistic directors still prefer music from the past centuries to music composed nowadays.
However, the most worrying outcome of this research, is that most of the protagonists of classical music are white western men. The reasons of this situation are multiple, and every time I write a composition, I feel (as a white western man) the weight of this problem.
How can I keep my communication needing through music and reach as much as possible the audience? How can I be inclusive as a composer? In the last years I thought that one idea could be to find a least common multiple between the people.
Where and when we are all the same? In dreams.
In dreams, space and time disappear. We create new worlds; we establish new rules. If music can make people live the same dream, we will – for a while – be on the same level. This is a solution on the artistic side. On a practical sense, I think that music can be equal when is mixed with other arts. In the last years I have been collaborating in a creative project where musicians and dancers can interact actively with the surrounding environment.
In conclusion, I think composers and artists in general should be more active on this front and take a position in the debate. Most of the times I talk with colleagues that prefer to avoid being exposed politically, because neutrality is a comfortable state. It is definitely not the right time to be neutral and support minorities and disadvantage battles.
We can make the difference.
Leave a Reply