Tenso Vocal

Young singers project, January/February in the Netherlands

2011-12-07T10:02:00.000-08:00

Meesters en Gezellen (Masters and Fellows) is the next edition of Tenso's young singers project, organized together with Stichting Tettix based in the Netherlands. Young singers from all over Europe ('fellows’) will be coached intensively by Geert Berghs, conductor Kaspars Putniņš (Latvia) and singers from the Nederlands Kamerkoor and Cappella Amsterdam. The fellows will learn to use their individual talents for ensemble singing, an aspect of vocal art that does not get enough attention in the formal curricula of vocal education at the European conservatories. After an intensive period of preparation, the group will give six concerts with highlights of the a capella repertoire.

Concert series in the Netherlands :

Sun 29 January, 15:00 Conservatorium van Amsterdam

Tue 31 January, 20:00 Koninklijk Conservatorium, Den Haag

Wed 1 February, 20:00 Orgelpark, Amsterdam

Fri 3 February, 20:00 NH Kerk, Coevorden

Sun 5 February, 15:30 Pieterskerk, Utrecht

more info on www.tettix.nl

Two new members join Tenso Network Europe

2011-06-27T01:08:00.000-07:00

Ars Nova Copenhagen (DK) and Eric Ericsons Kammarkör (SE) join the network!

Two new members have joined Tenso. Mette Dinesen (Ars Nova Copenhagen) and Per Korsfeldt (Eric Ericsons Kammarkör) attended the Tenso Professionals Meeting in Paris (16-18 June 2011) and were present at the first official General Assembly.

Read more about the two new members at the members page

Tenso Professionals Meeting - we look back at a successful meeting

2011-06-26T15:33:00.000-07:00

Tenso Professionals Meeting 2011

We look back at an interesting and fruitful meeting on the recording and distribution of (classical) music. Speakers such as John Bickley from the Sixteen's self-produced cd label; Chantal Pattyn from the Flemish (Belgian) classical radio station Klara; former French Minister of Culture and expert on artist rights on internet, Jacques Toubon; Yves Riesel, director of Qobuz.com; Laurence Le Ny, director of Orange; and Philip Hobbs from Linn Records shared their expertise with the members of the Tenso Network and other participants. More information on the programme, pictures, reports here.

UPDATE Tenso Professionals Meeting in Paris / 16-18 June 2011 / Life After Live Music

2011-05-03T13:21:00.000-07:00

Update on speakers for the next Tenso Professionals Meeting ( 16 to 18 June in Paris) now on line.

The subject of the meeting is Life After Live Music: Recording, Distribution, Internet and Emerging Technologies in the Digital Age. Speakers will tackle issues and solutions around the recording and distribution of music.

Who is Speaking? The panelists will be made up of representatives from various producing and distributing organizations including Deezer.com, platforma.lv, Linn Records, InstantEncore, Klara, Mirare, Tenso ensembles, as well as experts from other fields. The diversity of panelists will provide a working knowledge of the various models of production and distribution of musical recordings. Panels will be followed by question and answer periods.

panel 1 : CHANNELS
The fast pace of digital technology is also providing more and more options for distribution (via the web, cell phones, social media, to name a few). During the conference, we will look at the different channels for bringing recordings to the public (cd's, radio, internet downloads, live streaming, podcasts etc.).

panel 2 : MIDDLE MAN
Do we need a middleman - a producer, cd company, internet music site - or can we do it ourselves.

panel 3 : ECONOMICS
What is the current economic picture - is there still the possibility of net revenue from selling recordings or is it a net cost? How do we compensate the artists for recording activity?

panel 4 : WEB 2.0
With the explosion of digital technology, what will the future bring us in terms of new possibilities? How are recordings reaching audiences and what is the role of Web 2.0 and social media?

The meeting will feature the results of our pre-conference survey on current recording and distribution activities of the European professional choirs.

Information and registration

Tenso Young Composers Award for Laurent Durupt

2011-04-17T23:23:00.000-07:00

Tenso Young Composers Award for Laurent Durupt (FR) French composer Laurent Durupt is awarded the first Tenso Young Composers Award. The jury chose Durupt from the three finalists that participated in the final round of the Tenso Young Composers Workshop that took place in Riga in March 2011. The other two finalists where Maria Kallionpää (Finland/Austria) and Lauri Mäntysaari (Finland). Laurent is in the second year of his masters of composition at the Paris Conservatory (cnsmdp) and is a student of Frédéric Durieux. He has been awarded € 1.250 to write a 10 to 12 minute piece for a cappella choir, to be performed in 2012/13 by multiple Tenso choirs. Read more

Tenso Professionals Meeting in Paris / 16-18 June 2011 / Life After Live Music

2011-03-31T05:19:00.000-07:00

The next Tenso Professionals Meeting will be held from 16 to 18 June in Paris. Life After Live Music: Recording, Distribution, Internet and Emerging Technologies in the Digital Age will tackle issues and solutions around the recording and distribution of music. The meeting will feature the results of our pre-conference survey on current recording and distribution activities of the European professional choirs, and be followed by four panels composed of experts from across Europe. Each panel will be followed by an extended question and answer period.

panel 1 : CHANNELS The fast pace of digital technology is also providing more and more options for distribution (via the web, cell phones, social media, to name a few). During the conference, we will look at the different channels for bringing recordings to the public (cd's, radio, internet downloads, live streaming, podcasts etc.).

panel 2 : MIDDLE MAN Do we need a middleman - a producer, cd company, internet music site - or can we do it ourselves.

panel 3 : ECONOMICS What is the current economic picture - is there still the possibility of net revenue from selling recordings or is it a net cost? How do we compensate the artists for recording activity?

panel 4 : WEB 2.0 With the explosion of digital technology, what will the future bring us in terms of new possibilities? How are recordings reaching audiences and what is the role of Web 2.0 and social media?

Information and registration

Tenso Days 2011 Marseille postponed

2011-02-10T05:16:00.000-08:00

Due to funding problems, the 2011 TENSO DAYS Marseille have been postponed. While we are disappointed by this turn of events, we are happy to report that the funds which where originally earmarked for 2011 have been transferred to support activities around Marseilles-Provence European Capital of Culture 2013. The bottom line is that we can look forward to a vigorous and well supported 2013 TENSO DAYS Marseille!

Tenso Days 2011: Marseille!

2010-09-24T06:03:00.000-07:00

The next edition of Tenso Days is set for 19 to 21 September, 2011, and will be hosted by Marseille’s Musicatreize. Tenso Days will be presented in conjunction with the 20 Lieux sur la Mer (20 Sights by the Sea) festival. RIAS Kammerchor of Berlin, Cappella Amsterdam and Nederlands Kamerkoor, Det Norske Solistkor, the Latvian Radio Choir and Paris based accentus are among the professional chamber choirs that will present concerts during Tenso Days which will be held in Aix-en-Provence.

Festival 20 Lieux sur la Mer (15 to 21 September, 2011) is centered around the two day “Journées du Patrimoine” (Heritage days) where it is a tradition to open many different buildings and private spaces to the general public. The festival is a biennial event that was started in 2007 to mark the twentieth anniversary of Musicatreize and is supported by Marseille-Provence European Capital of Culture 2013. Twenty different venues will host short 20 to 30 minute concerts which the public generally discovers as they tour different buildings and spaces. Although all types of music are explored – from Baroque to traditional Eastern to modern classical – there is a predominance of vocal and contemporary music. For this year’s festival, Musicatreize will be joined by the Neue Vocalsolisten of Stuttgart and the Nederlands Kamerkoor of Amsterdam.

Jonathan Harvey: A conversation on the Tenso commission and more

2010-09-20T06:02:00.000-07:00

Well known and widely performed British composer Jonathan Harvey has written many a cappella works for choir, making him a natural choice for Tenso’s latest commission. Currently he is best known for his electro-acoustic music, but a quick look on the web and you will find a wealth of information, interviews and musical clips that shows him have a wonderful diversity of works, ranging from operas, to string quartets, to large orchestral and of course choral. I had the privilege of speaking to him about the Tenso commission and his views on the state of choral music. Here is part of that conversation:

Tell me about Tenso commission?

My early thought is that it will be an a cappella piece for 16 voices and about 20 minutes long. It will probably use words, but will not be a setting of poetry - more likely it will be an ancient spiritual text, or a group of words that have a singular meaning. I composed a piece (Messages for chorus and orchestra, 2007) that used the names of the angels - there are over 140 of them - as the text. The words have meaning, but not in the way that a traditional poem would.

After composing for choirs for many years, what changes have you seen? Have you seen any trends in the state of choral singing?

Probably the biggest change I have seen is that music has ceased to be tonal. This means that there are specialty choirs (like Tenso choirs) who are able to sing the atonal pieces, but it is often too difficult for many nonprofessional choirs or choirs who do not specialize in that area. The Cathedral choirs are very fine in England but very few could sing atonal music. Composers keep that in mind and often write very simple harmonies. In fact, one of the goals of the Tenso commission is to write a piece that is not too difficult for other choirs (besides the Tenso professionals) to sing. Another big change has been the introduction of nontraditional sounds. I am interested in “proto language” which is the basic expressive sound communication that humans perhaps discovered on their way to speech. Using sounds that are pre-linguistic in a composition adds an unexpected dimension. So specialized choirs can also sing atonal music and make nontraditional sounds - in other choirs there is a pitch fear and ‘noise’ fear (of the nontraditional sounds).

Have you seen any trends in the audience?

I support helping the audience with program notes, pre-concert introductions and so on. Choral music has the added feature that if you are using a text that the audience understands it creates another way into the music that is not present in purely instrumental music. One of the changes I have seen in the audiences is that they seem to be more open to nontraditional spaces and to amplifying the music. I think that, particularly in the case of younger audiences, you need to give them a sort of halfway house where they can experience art music in an environment that they are more comfortable in. There is a context for the hall where you can hear a pin drop, but also a need to explore nontraditional performance spaces that may be less intimidating to new audiences. Classical music is too important to be ‘exclusive’.

The delivery date for the new commission is August 2012. In the meantime there is no shortage of performances of Jonathan Harvey’s works - visit his website where you can download a list of upcoming concerts featuring his music. You can also download his latest article "Spiritual Music: 'positive' negative theology?" which is well worth reading and contains a wealth of insights (and some really wonderful lines - my favorite is “the delectable slithering away from certainty”). Another great resource I found on the web is an interview between Harvey and Bob Shingleton which finishes with a complete performance of Speakings, Harvey’s new composition for large orchestra and electronics.

Gregory Parry, September 2010

To know more about Jonathan Harvey: Chance Music - Jonathan Harvey interview with Bob Shingleton

Jonathan Harvey's web site: http://www.vivosvoco.com/

Oslo Tenso Days: Young Composers Workshop Completes 1st Session

2010-09-19T06:27:00.000-07:00

Tenso’s young composers workshop generated, with over 90 applications, a lot of interest in the community and by all measures it lived up to the anticipation.
The workshop leaders were pleasantly surprised by the quality and level of the six young composers and Tenso received overwhelmingly positive feedback from the participants. While the decision was difficult, Laurent Durupt, Maria Kallionpää and Lauri Mäntysaari have been selected to be invited to the followup session which will take place in April in Riga, Latvia.
Once again they will have the opportunity to work with composers James Wood and Leo Samama and with conductor Kaspars Putniņš and Latvijas Radio Koris. For the next phase, the composers will be asked to create a 5 to 6 minute piece which will differ stylistically and/or use different techniques from their original submissions. After the April session one of them will be awarded an official commission to be premiered by Latvijas Radio Koris at Tenso Days 2011 in Marseille. Another composers workshop with a new group of candidates is also planned for September 2011.

Photo Caption:
Tenso Composers Workshop, Tenso Days Oslo: Maria Kallionpää (Finland), Magnus Bunnskog (Sweden), Nick Piper (UK/Canada), Lauri Mäntysaari (Finland), James Wood (workshop leader, UK), Laurent Durupt (France) and Frederik Neyrinck (Belgium).
Photo: Leo Samama

British composer and conductor James Wood.
Photo: Leo Samama

Oslo Composers Workshop Receives over 90 Applications!

2010-09-12T04:09:00.000-07:00

The 2010 edition Tenso Young Composers Workshop, led by British composer, percussionist and conductor James Wood, received an almost overwhelming 91 applications from young composers worldwide.
Special thanks goes out to the jury who, in order to narrow the field, reviewed 180 scores in record time.

The following six composers are invited to come to Oslo: Magnus Bunnskog (Sweden 1974), Laurent Durupt (France 1978), Maria Kallionpää (Finland 1981), Lauri Mäntysaari (Finland 1982), Frederik Neyrinck (Belgium 1985) and Nick Piper (UK / Canada 1983). James Wood will lead the workshop together with Leo Samama, composer and former director of the Nederlands Kamerkoor. Two or three of the participants will be selected for a follow-up workshop to take place in the spring of 2011 and finally one composer will be awarded a Tenso commission and scheduled performances for the 2012/2013 season.

The workshop is scheduled to run Thursday 16 September from 16:30 to 19:00 and Friday 17 September 17 from 12:30 to 15:00 and is open to Tenso members.

Oslo Tenso Days 2010 September 16, 17, 18 in Oslo

2010-08-30T07:07:00.000-07:00

Tenso Days, September 16, 17, 18 2010, Oslo

hosted by Det Norske Solistkor (celebrating its 60th anniversary) and featuring three other Tenso choirs: Musicatreize, Nederlands Kamerkoor and Latvian Radio Choir

presented as part of the ULTIMA ’10 Oslo Contemporary Music Festival

Tenso Days more information

Tenso Young Composers Workshop at Tenso Days Oslo 2010

2010-07-30T07:20:00.000-07:00

As part of Tenso Days, a jury will select six composers to be invited to Oslo for two sessions on September 16 and 17, 2010.

Hotel and travel is provided and the top prize includes a commission and performances in the 2011/2012.

For more information on composers workshop and prize

Paris, Wednesday June 16, 2010 - Tenso Professionals Day NEW DATE

2010-06-15T23:00:00.000-07:00

TENSO, the European network of professional chamber choirs
invites choir managers to attend Tenso Professionals Day

NEW DATE
Wednesday June 16, 2010
Centre de Documentation de la Musique Contemporaine

Tenso Professionals Day will focus on the general state of chamber choirs in Europe and on ways to expend the current professional chamber choir network. The gathering is hosted by le choeur de chambre accentus.

The goal is to gather managers of chamber choirs from all over Europe, especially the Mediterranean, Balkan and the Eastern countries, with Tenso member choirs : choeur de chambre accentus (Paris), Musicatreize (Marseille), Cappella Amsterdam, Latvijas Radio Koris (Riga), Nederlands Kamerkoor (Amsterdam), Det Norske Solistkor (Oslo), Rias Kammerchor (Berlin) ; as well as other professionals from related fields.

Funding for the Tenso meeting has been provided by the European Union and travel and accommodation support is available, if necessary.

To register, please contact : Greg Parry
greg@tenso-vocal.eu
+33 (0)6 73 11 07 55

Registration fee : € 20

Conference host :
accentus
51 rue de Chabrol - 75010 Paris
Anaïs Humez
a.humez@accentus.fr
+33 (0)1 42 46 25 85
www.accentus.fr

Recommended Hotel :
Holiday Inn Paris - Gare de l'Est
5 rue du 8 mai 1945 - 75010 Paris
+33 (0)1 55 26 05 05

Tenso commissions - Jonathan Harvey

2010-05-30T07:37:00.000-07:00

The Tenso network has given a commission to British composer Jonathan Harvey for an a cappella choral work, to be premiered in 2012.

Jonathan Harvey is nowadays best known for his electro-acoustic music, and it has been several years since Harvey has written for unaccompanied chorus. Tenso is very much looking forward to the new work, which will be added to the repertoire of the current Tenso members.
The Tenso network will have the exclusive right to perform and record the new work for a period of three seasons after the premiere.

Details about performers, date and venue of the premiere and other performances will follow.

Paris, April 21, 2010 - Members meeting

2010-04-20T23:00:00.000-07:00

Tenso members will meet in April 21, 2010 in Paris to organise Oslo 2010 and Marseille 2011 Tenso Days.
Due the air traffic disruption, the European Manager Tenso meeting is postponed to June 16th in Paris

Berlin, January 15, 2010 - Members Meeting

2010-01-15T04:29:00.000-08:00

Tenso members will meet in January 15, 2010 in Berlin to organise Oslo 2010 and Marseille 2011 Tenso Days.

Tenso Day 2009 Website on line

2009-09-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

Have a look at www.tensodagen.nl.

Amsterdam, Friday October 16, 2009 - Tenso Professionals Day

2009-09-15T08:52:00.000-07:00

During the Tenso Days in Amsterdam - taking place in October, 15-18, 2009 in the already renowned Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ - the network will organize a day for professionals in the fields of choir music, contemporary music, music education, music writing, cultural policy and others.

Two themes :
“playing the voice” - the voice as instrument
on the status of professional (ensemble) singing
where do we find a new generation of chamber choir singers?

"guerilla tactics"
how to involve amateurs and (new) audiences?
challenges, best practices, do’s and don’ts

Click here for more information

EU grant for Tenso Network!

2009-04-15T08:37:00.000-07:00

The Tenso Network proudly announces that the EU Culture Programme supports the activities of the network with a substantial grant.

In the period May 2009 - April 2010, we have undertaken several activities to support professional choirs in Europe, including the distribution of new and recent repertoire for chamber choir, and exchanges between professional and with amateur choirs :

* Tenso Days Amsterdam (see below)
* exchange programmes and composers workshops
* joint commissions for new works for chamber choir
* symposia on the current state of professional chamber choirs
* making repertoire available through (internet) databases
* expanding the Tenso Network

Haarlem, July 2 2009 - Tenso Managers Meeting during Internationale Koorbiennale Haarlem Wednesday

2009-04-14T01:10:00.000-07:00

The Internationale Koorbiennale Haarlem kindly invites Tenso and its associates to join them in Haarlem on Wednesday 2 July for a general meeting of choir managers, orchestra managers, composers, singers, journalists, policy makers and others involved in the creation and performance of contemporary choir music.

More information, preliminary programme and registration will follow in the next newsletter.

Amsterdam, October 15-18 , 2009 - Tenso Days

2009-04-13T03:13:00.000-07:00

Nederlands Kamerkoor and Cappella Amsterdam will host the Tenso Days Amsterdam, taking place in the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ from 15 to 18 October 2009.

The theme of the concert programmes is THE CANON OF THE XX CENTURY - a.o. Schönberg, Messiaen, De Leeuw, Poulenc, Xenakis, Schnittke, Pärt together with premieres of European composers.

The choirs that will perform :
Nederlands Kamerkoor • Latvian Radia Choir • Accentus • Cappella Amsterdam • Eesti Filharmoonia Kammerkoor • Det Norkse Solistkor

To know more about Tenso days Amsterdam....

The programme of the Tenso Days Amsterdam will be published on www.tensodagen.nl (on line in May 2009)