Projects With Children

Bringing new music to new audiences a new perspective on contemporary music & participation of young children in contemporary music projects.

Contemporary composed music is often considered as too abstract or too complex for young children. As complexity is concerned, children are faced with all kinds of complexity from birth. Why then avoid complexity when dealing with music? Music that is being perceived or thought of as abstract, rather refers to the lack of experience with an idiom or its performance practice. In fact, the only abstract music that exists, is the music we can’t imagine or remember, or the one that lacks contextual anchor points with one’s own experience. Each year, UMS’nJIP take up this challenge with their educational projects.

Is an interactive journey of experience confronting >4000 children in their first year of school with classical or contemporary composed music. These first class concerts break down the borders between listening, active experience and performing together. The format was awarded a European YEAH! Award in 2015. From the jury report: Musimatrix is a unique, immersive experience for first grade students to become familiar with the sounds and process of contemporary music. This is an ideal example of contemporary music mediation that relies on the motivation and activity of a young audience as well as the musicians – without reducing the artistic quality. Excellently done! Musimatrix 2020 is created within the project Sounds Now co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. The project Sounds Now has been selected as a large-scale European collaboration project for Creative Europe. Musica Impulse Centre for Music Belgium leads Sounds Now, as project leader, together with: Wilde Westen (BE), Festival van Vlaanderen (BE), SNYK National Centre for Contemporary Music and Sound Art in Denmark (DK), SPOR Festival (DK), Viitasaaren Kesäakatemiary (FI), Stichting November Music (NL), Stiftelsen Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival (NO), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK) and Ariona Hellas AE (GR). The Musimatrix 2020/21 Ensembles are Jasper & Jasper, Duobaan and UMS’nJIP. A participative contemporary opera commissioned by Festival Nueva Ópera de Buenos Aires FNOBA 2018 – arises from the first contact with the children of the Colegio Hermanos Latinoamericanos and children in the Villa 20 in Buenos Aires where a 4-minute work is created with the children, integrating contemporary music, with all the material that the children bring and are interested in (violence, terror, fear). The artistic, musical and theatrical objective of the project was to develop, using as a base the material that the children themselves propose, their own listening, both as individuals and a group. It is through the process of construction of a theatrical, corporal, musical and vocal score that the children can generate a work that implies the conjunction of several common codes. This directly results in them learning to listen to each other, to concentrate, to explore in certain times and contexts, as well as to experience silence, to respect it, and to create an unforgettable impact on them, turning them into actors, subjects that are seen, not mere spectators of art, but, protagonists. Our desire was to integrate all children in the creative process, to make them feel listened to, creators and that they will never forget this experience.