Issue #4 of the Sounds Now publication series
After the Second World War, all kinds of movements emerged in the arts, and therefore also in contemporary music. Past trauma and new awareness collided and generated diverse outcomes in the Cold War reality. Never-again war and a desire for a new free and tolerant future were the motives for often experimental art expressions that came to focus on political activism, engagement, communality and attention, to name a few social themes of that era. Composers such as Luigi Nono, Mauricio Kagel, Hans Werner Henze, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Louis Andriessen incorporated fierce political themes (often communist in nature) into their work.
After 1980, the most extroverted political themes disappeared next to the technical discourse of composition and new technological innovations. New music became a seemingly self-reflective and inaccessible academic art form to many people. The music itself became central, and less so the message or the audience. As always, European white men were the ones writing the manifestos. That being said, change was in the air and the world got introduced to female composers like Finnish Kaija Saariaho, and Russian composers such as Sofia Gubaidulina and Galina Ustvolskaja.
In the past ten to twenty years, art has become political again, but from a different angle. Due to the new media infocracy, the Western canon is no longer the standard for what is good and bad art, even if white men are still strongly present in the making of decisions. The share of women and nonbinary artists on stages and behind the scenes is growing, and makers from continents other than Europe and the United States are making themselves heard. Diversity and inclusivity are themes that recur everywhere, whether we attend events in Reykjavik,Venice, Viitasaari, Donaueschingen or ‘s-Hertogenbosch.
In this fourth volume that takes the theme “Engaging”, we are happy to give some of these concerns a platform with the help of some of the most interesting names in the field. Juliet Fraser is, in addition to being a fantastic singer, a great advocate for structural change. Mo Laudi is a multidisciplinary artist from South Africa. He is inspired by African knowledge systems, post-apartheid transnationalism, international and underground subcultures. In our Sounds Now project “Freedom to Move”, with singer Sofia Jernberg as our artistic conscience, we give new voices and faces a stage. The most special and personal stories are included in this issue.
