Music Is Not! A Symposium On and Around the Kunsthalle for Music

“That music must be heard is not essential - what it sounds like may not be what it is."
— Charles Ives

“I want everything I do to be presented in an art context.”
— Kanye West

Music is not necessarily what you think it is.

Friday 26 May (5:30 - 8:30 pm)

Download the full program below. Keynote at 6:45 pm by Peter Osborne (Professor of Modern European Philosophy). Other participants are Victoria Ivanova (Writer and Curator), Jörn Schafaff (Art Historian), Marie-France Rafael (Art Historian), Francois Quintin (Director, Lafayette Anticipations), and Lisette Smits (Curator). During the symposium, all speakers address and tackle a series of fundamental questions surrounding Kunsthalle for Music ahead of its inauguration January 2018, alongside Defne Ayas (Director, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art), Armen Avanessian (Philosopher, Literary & Political Theorist), and Ari Benjamin Meyers (Artistic Director & Composer, Kunsthalle for Music).

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Saturday 27 May (10 am - 7:30 pm)

Auditions are held for the Kunsthalle for Music's future ensemble, culminating in a series of open workshops between select performers and the symposium’s invited composers, Elena Rykova, Wojtek Blecharz, and Jonathan Bepler, and performers Sandhya Daemgen and Ayumi Paul. (For future audition dates, apply to the open call until 30 June 2017.)

To read more about Kunsthalle for Music, and Artistic Director and Composer Ari Benjamin Meyers’ manifesto, please see the project page.

The program was conceived by Ari Benjamin Meyers (Founding Director, Kunsthalle for Music) and Defne Ayas (Director, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art) together with Armen Avanessian (Philosopher, Literary & Political Theorist). The program is coordinated by Rosa de Graaf (Assistant Curator, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art).

Kunsthalle for Music

The Kunsthalle for Music is commissioned by Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art (Rotterdam) together with Spring Workshop (Hong Kong). An exposition, not an exhibition by Ari Benjamin Meyers unfolded the Kunsthalle’s foundational themes at Spring Workshop (11 March - 1 April, 2017), followed by the symposium Music Is Not! at Witte de With (26 - 27 May, 2017) and punctuated by an inaugural exhibition, featuring a series of new commissions also at Witte de With (opening 25 January, 2018).