Transnational Musical Encounters 2024
Contributions to research project about classical music performing, culture and identity
The project Transnational Musical Encounters refers to artistic performance and concert events where three music performing students played an important role by sharing musical repertoires and cultural knowledge from different cultures and countries, respectively Daniel Sánchez-Rando Cañas from Malaga, Reem Ryadh from Iraki and me, Mariia Yefanova from Ukraine.
Between March 2023 and December 2024, we participated in several performances at UiA, one in Grimstad Kulturhus, and Daniel and Reem took part in a cross-disciplinary performance project at the University of Valencia.
While we share a connection as classical music performance students, we have explored different cultural backgrounds through musical practices in concert events together with fellow students and guest performers. As contributors to the upcoming anthology, Learning to Perform Musical Pasts: Higher education, historical crafts, cultural identity we needed to reflect on cultural identities and different ways of sharing our music with ensembles and audiences. Our reflections are included in a chapter which highlights artistic performance concepts that emphasize presenting historical pasts but at the same time connects to the present-day music cultural life. The book chapter refers to an exploration of musical background that is linked to the Research group RHiMuCE Reconfiguring Historical Musical Crafts Education. An important aim is to present classical music so that performers and audiences find it meaningful and interesting.
Each of us had to go deeper into music from our own culture, which was interesting. We found that through our work with the various repertoires and performers, our musical identity was further developed.
The topics we explored were classical Spanish music from the Andalusian region, which has been strongly influences by culture from Middle Eastern regions. Daniel, who studied a classical music repertoire in depths commented that the intercultural projects caught his attention to Spanish music in a new and interesting way. For Reem who has an Iraki background it became an important task to explore Arabic songs in different styles. From Reem’s perspective the sharing of Arabic songs felt meaningful, because it reminded her of her family and traditions. She says that projects we did were so powerful because they celebrate cultural diversity while also showing how music can unite us.
My work with Ukraine folksongs and Ukraine classical piano music were the third music culture in this study. The Ukrainian music was studied through rehearsals and performing in my practice as a choir conductor and a participant in the intercultural event in September. It was an interesting and inspiring experience for me and my fellow students. Sharing the music of my culture with other musicians and audiences means a lot to me. And I’m glad we succeeded in doing that.
Published 6 Desember 2024
By
Mariia Yefanova mariiay@student.uia.no