Curating Contemporary Music Festivals

1. Why did you chose this topic?

Growing up studying classical music in conservatories, where so many aspects about music's presentation were self-evident, I wondered what would happen if music's context was acknowledged as itself co-constitutive of the experience. Because contemporary music festivals have recently started to experiment with exactly this, I wanted to write a book about how the concept of curating, taken from the visual arts, could be a useful foundation for thinking about music's mediation.

2. What new perspectives does your book offer?

Artistic directors have recently taken to renaming themselves `curators' in music, although they are often unfamiliar with the historical and critical discourses around curating that this implies. I therefore set out to introduce the field to such ideas from a uniquely musical perspective, one that is aware of how curatorial practice intersects with the specificities of contemporary classical music, like issues of Werktreue and compositional authorship.

3. What makes your topic relevant for current research debates?

There is a lot of thinking in contemporary music right now about its episteme and underlying assumptions, especially as individual commissioned scores are becoming increasingly marginal forms of artistic expression. Within this context, this book suggests that much greater study should be focused on the frameworks and structures in which music takes place, which have for far too long remained unquestioned and seemingly self-evident.

4. Choose one person you would like to discuss your book with!

Berno Odo Polzer! I'm curious to know what he thinks about my interpretation of his festival, which was one of my case studies.

5. Your book summary in one sentence:

This book develops a theory of curating in music in order to analyze two major New Music festivals in Germany.