Training The Senses: Sounding Bodies

Date: September 5th
Time: 7 – 9 PM
With: Aart Strootman and Genevieve Murphy
Location: De Brandweer
Language: English spoken

We are used to defining music as the product of bodies and instruments. As we train our body to play and listen, our bodies train the instrument to produce sound. The idea of mastery in music lies in the seamless match between body and instrument. We rarely discuss the requirements of a seamless match, or how it can be achieved, which means we need to search for the handicaps and exceptions to experience it.

What if the body does not function well enough to train the instrument, the instrument needs specific care, or different ways of playing it can affect the sounds of the instrument? What if we take the body itself as an instrument, tune it, and join it with other bodies? These questions are central at the first Training the Senses Fall Session, Sounding Bodies, with Aart Strootman and Genevieve Murphy.

Genevieve Murphy & Aart Strootman

Genevieve Murphy (1988, Scotland) combines visual art performances with contemporary classical music, her concepts frequently based on psychology and disability. After having studied piano and composition at the Royal Conservatoire of Glasgow, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and The Royal Conservatory of The Hague, she has collaborated and performed with free improvisers and choreographers as well as toured internationally with London based visual artist Martin Creed. Murphy became a member of Standplaats Utrecht (2018), a performance/interdisciplinary platform supported by a number of companies including Utrecht SPRING Festival and Het Huis Utrecht. On September 7th 2019, the composition They Move Differently Here, was commissioned by and premiered at the Gaudeamus Muziekweek in Utrecht.

Guitarist and composer Aart Strootman (1987) is a pioneer on the stage of contemporary music. He studied classical guitar, music theory and musicology, and currently is a PhD candidate at the University of Leiden via the DocArtes program. He researches the physical modifications of instruments to find new sounds, starting from the acoustic foundation. Aart teaches music history, (advanced) ear training, analysis, philosophy and performance studies at the Fontys School of Arts in Tilburg. As a result of winning the Gaudeamus Award in 2017, he wrote W.A.L.L and made custom instruments for it. The premiere of this piece will take place on the 4th of September 2019. Strootman received the prestigious Matthijs Vermeulen Prize at the Gaudeamus Music Week in 2019 for his work Shambling Emerge – after after party.

What is Training the Senses?

Knowledge is not only acquired visually at schools through language and text books. Learning involves all of our senses: we learn by listening, tasting, smelling, touching – and even by using our intuition. Through Training the Senses participants explore and discover a new vocabulary for all their senses and a new way to transmit experience and acquire knowledge.Training the Senses is an ongoing series organised by Marres, that avoids any division between speakers/performance and the audience. Everyone is welcome to join.
The Training the Senses program is financially supported by the Overvoorde Gordon Foundation – Pauwhof Fonds.