A listening room

Open call for participants in the Microtonal Music Studios Research and Study program 2024-2025!

OPEN CALL for participants in the study program at the Microtonal Music Studios.

DEADLINE 15.7.2024
Link to more information: https://microtonalmusicstudios.com/open-call-2024/

Microtonal Music Studios is pleased to present its second open call for participants for its artistic and musical research program that takes place between September 2024 and May 2025. The full program lasts three years and ends in 2025 and the program and its results are included in a book that will be published in 2025/2026.

Led by Dr Timo Tuhkanen the research and study program of Microtonal Music Studios asks its participants to re-imagine musical aesthetics as well as musical practices through a lens of relational art, performance studies, and institutional critique focused on place making, platforms and resource management. Microtonal Music Studios is located in Helsinki, Finland. The studios is an institutional formation around music and contemporary art and is situated in conjunction with the contemporary art gallery Myymälä2.

The program consists primarily of individual work, focusing on developing the artistic practice of each student. It also engages in collaborations at the studios between the students and through the interruptions of visiting artists, researchers, curators, composers, and musicians who engage widely with new ideas about music, sound, and instruments in order to share knowledge and develop practical skills related to the materialisation of both acoustic and electronic music.

As a relational art practice music is seen as a social formation not only around sounds, but also around instruments. The program asks participants to critically think about instruments, what they are and how they are and can be instrumentalized for interrupting and changing social norms and habits in permanent ways as material sonic artefacts. Microtonal Music Studios experiments in combining institutional practices from both contemporary art and music to create a place in which practice and theory intertwine allowing for critical inquiry into hearing, seeing, performing, and thinking.

Participants in the study program gain access to the Microtonal Music Studios full services as an all inclusive studio with over 80 available musical instruments, its sound recording studios, which include various acoustic spaces, microphones, both analogue and digital mixing and mastering equipment with the possibility of duplicating c-tape hardcopies; they also gain access to the spaces and tools for building and modifying acoustic and digital instruments, as well as basic raw materials. Through Myymälä2 gallery the students are also given the possibility to engage with Myymälä2 in-house and visiting curators and professional artists to discuss and receive feedback about their their practice.

This year the programme is divided into three paths or areas of focus: theoretical, practical playing, and practical instrument/installation making, with a strong interest in combining the three. Students are expected to participate in a minimum of 2 sessions a month at the Studios either in person or online. The studio encourages the students to focus on their process, practice and interests in developing their artistic concepts and works at the intersection of music and contemporary art. Included in the program, the students are expected to participate in collaborative works through a program of monthly workshops and lectures from visiting faculty which include material workshops and development in specific skills for making instruments, as well as seminars and discussions on artistic practice, and collaborative peer to peer learning. Workshops and lectures happen within the facilities of the Microtonal Music Studios and public events and sessions happen in Myymälä2 gallery.

Confirmed external faculty for the three year program: Peter Ablinger, Dewa Alit, Andrius Arutiunian, Diemo Schwarz, Marc Sabat, Aaron Bergman & Alejandra Salinas, Louise Chude-Sokei, Max Eastley, Lucia Hinojosa Gaxiola, Dirar Kalash, Shinji Kanki, Zhenhua Li, Kaisa Luukkonen, Hans-Gunter Lock, Ann Rosén, Jani Ruscica, Nicolina Stylianou, Marko Timlin, Matei Sloboda & Ensemble Spectrum, Linda Sormin, Maries Van Son, Suva. (More details, faculty, and schedule to be confirmed).

The centre is a physical platform for the exploration of microtonal music from a post-national and decolonized perspective. There is no focus on any style, tradition or culture of music and microtonal music is seen as an encompassing material quality of music that needs resources to develop and which so far has been marginalized by the industrialization and mass production of both instruments and instrumentalists. Microtonal music is bespoke and personal. It allows people to find their own musical voice outside of any musical tradition, but also allows those musical traditions to expand their tonality and sound.

Send your application to [email protected]. In your application, please include a cover letter describing your artistic practice, why you would like to join the program, and how you see your artistic practice benefiting from participating in the program. Also, please include your CV and your portfolio (if you have one).

For more information please contact Timo Tuhkanen at [email protected].

DEADLINE 15.7.2023

Results will be given by July 31.

The program starts September 1st 2024 and ends in May 2025.

The study program is able to accommodate 10 positions in its yearly cycle with each student being compensated 350€ for their participation.

Microtonal Music Studios is a project founded by artist, composer and researcher Dr Timo S. Tuhkanen. The project and its study program is supported by Kone Foundation, Saastamoinen Foundation, and Myymälä2 gallery.

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