The composistion students in MD2A at Bodø High school and I had a workshop together on Wednesday January 6th. It was a great experience!
I have only met the students once before during our video call last autumn. I was really glad we were able to have a workshop together now in January. The plan for the day was to go through the recipe on how to compose a piece for OUTPOST (last blog post), rehearse my piece "This was a terrible video call" and start composing their own pieces.
One of the goals of OUTPOST is to experiment and focus more on process than product, and I really got to experiment when we worked on mye piece "This was a terrible video call". I quickly realised that there were a few things that didn't really work out the way I had hoped. In the beginning of the piece the performers are going imitate to start talking and then interrupt each other only with their breath and not words. This was quite difficult with the whole group which is over 20 students. It might work better in a smaller group. The end of the piece where the performers are asked to sing long notes or repeat a single word, worked very well. Some of the moments were actually quite beautiful, and the students did a great job performing it. I got another idea for the beginning of the piece that I will try out in February. Maybe it will work better with flashlights instead of only breaths?
Here are some pictures from when we were rehearsing.
After that the students started to compose their own pieces. Their teacher, Karstein, had divided them into groups of three-four students. I was really impressed with their creativity! The groups had very different ideas and concepts. Some chose something very personal and worked with feelings, while other told stories about their surroundings. We didn't have time to try out the pieces, but I am really looking forward to continue working on the pieces with them.
When the workshop was finished, I asked them to describe what we had done together with one word, and it could be any word. This is what they said:
interesting - white - mind opening - exiting - patterns - creative - groovy - good - fun - spontaneous - cool - funny - funky - new - cosy - different - weird
I had a great time at the workshop, and my one word that I take from the day is: inspiring! Can't wait to meet the students again next month.