[confictura.norma.x] I.

 

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PROGRAM STRUCTURE

 

The residency unfolds through three consecutive stages, moving from the articulation and contextualization of participants’ practices to critical experimentation, on-site development, and public presentation.

 

Stage I. | September–October 2026

2 online seminars

 

The first stage establishes the artistic and discursive foundations of the residency.

 

Saxophonists and quartets introduce their practices, methodologies, selected performances, current projects, and central questions. These presentations establish a shared context for the historical, technical, interpretative, aesthetic, and institutional positions represented within the cohort.

 

Participants present the repertoire, recordings, research materials, performance projects, or works in progress they intend to develop. Soloists may address technique, interpretation, programming, historical transmission, or artistic identity. Quartets may introduce ensemble methods, rehearsal procedures, coordination, repertoire interests, and collective decision-making.

 

The seminars compare positions and identify questions guiding subsequent development. Attention may focus on relations between inherited traditions and present practice, the material conditions of sound production, the epistemic role of recording and documentation, and tensions among individual agency, ensemble coherence, and institutional expectation.

 

Stage I includes:

– 2 online seminars

– Presentation and contextualization of participants’ artistic practices

– Introduction of selected performances, recordings, and current projects

– Presentation of works in progress, interpretative propositions, or research questions

– Exchange among soloists, quartets, peers, and mentors

– Discussion of technical, historical, aesthetic, and methodological interests

– Identification of questions for subsequent experimentation and development

– Introduction to SOURCE, SUBSTANCE, AND STRUCTURE: Performance as Musical Knowledge

– Q&A

 

This stage does not seek to finalize projects, but to establish a precise basis for development. Participants identify the sources on which their practices depend, the material and embodied knowledge they mobilize, and the structures through which performances acquire coherence.

 

 

Stage II. | November–December 2026

2 online seminars

 

The second stage centers on critical inquiry and practice-led experimentation.

 

Participants present developed performances, recordings, methodological reflections, annotated scores, rehearsal materials, technical demonstrations, or other documentation. These materials are examined through collective listening, comparative analysis, discussion, and feedback.

 

Depending on each project, inquiry may address tone production, articulation, intonation, phrasing, breath, temporality, balance, blend, extended techniques, electronics, notation, repertoire history, arrangement, recording, staging, spatialization, rehearsal, or relations between interpretative intention and perceptible outcome.

 

Practice-led experimentation generates and tests knowledge through performance. A technical adjustment may alter formal perception; a revised rehearsal protocol may redistribute ensemble agency; comparison among instruments, editions, or recordings may expose tacit assumptions. Experimentation is assessed not by novelty alone, but by the precision of its question, the rigor of its method, and the understanding it produces.

 

Stage II includes:

– 2 online seminars

– Presentation of developed performances, recordings, and research materials

– Collective listening, demonstration, and comparative analysis

– Discussion of interpretative structures, embodied techniques, and sonic materials

– Examination of scores, recordings, instruments, technologies, and rehearsal methods

– Artistic and methodological feedback from peers and mentors

– Critical reflection on the historical and institutional premises of each practice

– Identification of questions requiring further experimentation or rehearsal

– Development of documentation and public presentation strategies

– Preparation for the subsequent on-site residency and festival presentations

– Continued engagement with SOURCE, SUBSTANCE, AND STRUCTURE

– Q&A

 

By the conclusion of Stage II, participants should understand the artistic, technical, historical, methodological, and logistical conditions required for the on-site phase. Projects need not be definitively complete, but should be sufficiently articulated to enter intensive rehearsal, testing, refinement, documentation, and public realization.

 

 

Stage III. | June 2027

On-site residency at the seventh Bled Contemporary Music Week

 

The final stage takes place in Bled, Slovenia, during the seventh Bled Contemporary Music Week.

 

Participants work intensively to develop, realize, and publicly articulate their projects. Materials prepared online enter concrete acoustic, spatial, technical, embodied, and interpersonal conditions. The on-site phase is not the straightforward execution of prior decisions: rehearsal, sound checking, spatial testing, recording, discussion, and adaptation remain active modes of inquiry.

 

Actual rooms and public contexts may require changes in pacing, projection, balance, notation, instrumentation, staging, or mediation. Soloists refine interpretative positions through repeated performance, listening, and reflection. Quartets test ensemble relations through rehearsal, comparison, and collective decisions. Temporary groups may form where projects benefit from shared listening, expertise, or collaborative activation.

 

Stage III includes:

– On-site residency at the seventh Bled Contemporary Music Week

– Direct exchange among saxophonists, quartets, peers, and mentors

– Artistic development and practical realization of participating projects

– Solo and ensemble rehearsals

– Saxophone laboratories and practice-led experimentation

– Interpretative, technical, spatial, and sonic refinement

– Recording, documentation, and preparation of public mediation

– Performances, lecture-performances, laboratories, and research presentations

 

The public presentations culminate the residency without implying definitive closure. They situate projects within a wider artistic and discursive context, presenting performance, inquiry, rehearsal, documentation, and exchange as interdependent dimensions of musical knowledge.