Utopia

Where is Utopia? Well, this week it’s trying to come into existance in a beautiful wood and glass constructed conference centre high in the mountains of Austria.

St Arbogast conference centre

The “Days of Utopia” are held here every two years, and people meet to discuss ways of making life on this planet tend towards something better. The idea is not to start from zero and imagine an ideal world, but to think how to make imaginitive improvements using available resources, especially human resources.

And why am I here? Because for each bi-annual conference, the organisers invite a musician in residence who writes and plays  music before and after each session of discussion. The music before, to prepare the atmosphere for fruitful discussion, and the music afterwards to encourage reflexion and assimilation.. They want the music to be site-specific ie created  specifically for this setting and for the topic under dicussion.

So this year, I’m the one who accepted this challenging but stimulating role. The budget allows for me to invite another musician, so my guest is Magali Imbert, who plays recorder - in fact all the various recorders, and also some light percussion instruments.

Magali Imbert

Each evening, a speaker makes a presentation drawing on his own experiences and ideas. The next day discussion groups form to debate the topic. For example on the first day, a geneticien  explained why we should think again about the idea of the survival of the fittest and replace it with the survival of the most cooperative. It seems that at the level of the genes, this is a more adaquate description. He spoke a lot about “resonance” and communication by imitation, and so for the music of this day, I used the viola d’amore, which is a perfect illustration of musical resonance, with its doubled “resonance” strings.

Music: Utopia 1

Another day, the theme was age, especially showing how the aging of societies will change their nature, so I wrote a piece called the “Future of Age” using my “new” discovery (well, new to me!), a medieval fiddle. A great maker in Germany, Thilo Vierhig, made this instrument for me.

Music: Utopia 2

Some local arcitects came to explain how by simply using the natural resources of Voralberg (eg. wood) imaginatively they could improve peoples lives by making their environment more beautiful and more in tune with nature. They spoke of the value of varied repetition, and for this with Magali we played the Utopian Dances. I don’t know how people will dance in Utiopia, but I imagine it would be in many different ways, each to his own, to reflect the positevely multiple nature of Utopia.

Music: Utopia 3

As part of the refelction on Utopia, a local artist, Hannes Ludescher presented an amazing installation of floating stones, giant paper maché imitations of small stones suspended on very thin strings, giving the impression of weightlessness, which inspired a piece called “Floating Stones”

Music: Utopia 4

The architecture of this region has recently become very well-known, with many new experimental houses and buildings. In the grounds of the conference centre there is the “Wasserhaus”, a concrete house full of holes, where water is the welcome guest, a peaceful spot for meditation on nature

I was using three instruments in these pieces, viola (of course!), viola d’amore and the medieval fiddle. Magali had 5 different recorders and some crotales and a “drum” which gave us a rich and varied palette

The final piece finished with a small miracle. I imagine Utopia to be a place not of one big miracle, but of many very small miracles, like a flower that opens, a bird that sings, or someone who smiles at you in a special way. After quite a sombre opening and a dark reflective centre, the viola d’amore retunes into the major key and the small miracle happpens.

Music: Utopia 5

It was a very inspiring week, full of stimulating people and ideas, and all in the most idyllic setting (and the weather was wonderful!) . It’s very encouraging to meet people who give such an important place to music (even though they were not especially musicians), and very enlightening to see that music really does have the power to open minds, provide inspiration and bring people together. Quite a responsability for us musicians - there’s a whole lot more to music than “just” music!

Links:
More about Utopia : www.tagederutopie.org
More about medieval fiddle maker: www.gotisches-haus.com