Wiederholung, Prozess, Mehrstimmigkeit: Technische Annäherungen an den Begriff der ästhetischen Kontemplation in der Komposition mit Zitaten
(Repetition, Process, Polyphony: Technical Approaches to the Concept of Aesthetic Contemplation in Composition with Quotations)
The concept of contemplation is as complex as it is old. While in centuries of Christian metaphysical tradition it represented an ascetic attitude toward the world in pursuit of divine knowledge, the philosopher Martin Seel describes it as a phenomenological mode of aesthetic perception that focuses disinterested attention on the mere appearance of the sensually perceptible. Similar phenomenological-contemplative concepts are also found in certain forms of object-oriented meditation practice, which often focus on reflection and the concomitant decentering of cognitive-intentional acts toward the object of meditation.
On the basis of two works by Luc Ferrari and Rolf Riehm as well as my own compositions, I will try to illustrate how the concept of aesthetic contemplation can be thought and realized in compositional terms. In doing so, composing with quotations will be at the center of my research interest, since a perspective uninterested in propositional understanding can be demonstrated in a particularly contrasting way. A particular focus will be on the shaping of time sequences and the paradoxical-dialectical relationship of repetition and process structures.
Internal Supervisors and External Advisors: Isabel Mundry (ZHdK), Jörn-Peter Hiekel (ZHdK).
Jakob Stillmark
Composition
Jakob Stillmark received his first composition lessons with Ernst August Klötzke in Wiesbaden. During that time, he won, among other prizes, the German Orchestra Foundation's prize for "best composition" at the orchestra workshop for young composers in Halberstadt. From 2013 to 2019, he studied composition with Isabel Mundry at the University of Music Munich and has been working as a freelance composer since receiving his master's degree. He participated in numerous international master classes, where he received lessons from Toshio Hosokawa, Liza Lim, Younghi Pagh Paan and Peter Eötvös, among others. His works have already been heard in the chamber music series of the Munich Philharmonic, at the Munich Biennale, at the Munich Kammerspiele, at the Shanghai Academy of Music and at the Staatstheater Darmstadt. His orchestral work "heim-?" was premiered in June 2019 by the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie under the baton of Manuel Nawri. He is also a composer and organizer at the aDevantgarde Festival in Munich. Since September 2020 he is a PhD student at the Zurich University of the Arts and is a scholarship holder of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. As a fellow of the Bavarian Ministry of Science and the Arts, Stillmark will begin a six-month working residency at the Cite' des Arts in Paris in November 2022.