A month full of collaborative endeavours in the field of new music and pedagogy is drawing to a close. April began with the spring conference of the Institute for New Music and Music Education (4-6 April 2024). Students of the New Music Workshop took part in a course on the conference theme "artistically intelligent" and performed prominently in the evening concerts in front of an international audience of experts. In preparatory block seminars in the winter semester, composition and instrumental students from Akademie für Tonkunst had already explored the conference theme. At the interface between AI-supported invention processes and principles of artistic research, they developed sound-interactive draft responses to the associative field of "artistically intelligent" for the "Parcours der Möglichkeiten". They were supported by Dr Gesa Biffio (AfT, music education), Matthias Lang (AfT, percussion teacher / AI doctoral student at TU Darmstadt), Prof Sun-Young Nam (AfT / Trio Catch, piano) and Arne Gieshoff (AfT, composition) as well as Clemens Wolf (composition student at HfMDK Frankfurt), Prof Orm Finnendahl (HfMDK, composition) and Robin Hoffmann (INMM, composer).
On 20 April, we hosted students from the HfMDK Frankfurt and the Manhattan School of Music, who presented an outstanding concert with world premieres from the classes of Prof. Ulrich Kreppein (FfM), Prof. Orm Finnendahl (FfM) and Prof. Reiko Füting (NYC). There was also a productive exchange with the composition classes of Prof Il-Ryun Chung (DA / AfT) and Arne Gieshoff (DA / AfT). The evening ended with a cosy get-together and a pork knuckle in the Brauhaus Braustübl.
Another highlight then took place on 5 May in front of a full hall in the Wilhelm-Petersen-Saal: together with HR2-Kultur - "Hessen in Concert - A Day for Music", the youngest music students performed together with experienced soloists from the teaching staff. Children and young people from the composition class had composed new works, which were interpreted by renowned lecturers and students from the academy. In addition, young performers from the music school presented new works from the composition faculty, some of which were written especially for them. A varied and entertaining concert afternoon dedicated entirely to Darmstadt's female composers and musicians! Many thanks to all colleagues, pupils and students!
