For the fifth time Europa InTakt - Music and Inclusion

Workshops and concerts from 21-24 September 2022 in Dortmund

Europa InTakt 2022 - Classic goes digital

Classic goes digital. Why? All over Europe, inventive people have come up with new media in recent years to help people with disabilities make music. Old instruments are being fitted with sensors, new instruments invented and computer programmes further developed. Traditional music making, the classical playing of an instrument - classic - is being expanded to include the creation of sounds with electronic help - digital.  

Classic versus digital? No. Classic goes digital! Together and interdisciplinary it continues. With composition and improvisation, with reproduction, variation and experiment. 

Inclusion is avant-garde! Also and especially in music! Inclusion is creativity - and good music! 

Documentation of the Europe InTakt 2022 events 

Introduction and overview  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ7w5l_3N3c  

I Concerts

21. 09. 2022 

piano plus, Dortmund  

KeKeCa, Bodypercussion and Soundshirt, Istanbul : Alla Turca - https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=bKdJgzSzye4 

Yanna Pelser Trio with Karin van Dijk and Florine Joosse, Rotterdam - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tUHOrBGuok

22.09.2022 

Tabula Musica, Bern - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zibudb0VItw  

Hands off Music, Köln - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y31UuZZG4Kw 

Good People Orchestra, Novi Sad, Serbien - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4beXBzml60 

KeKeCa, Bodypercussion, Istanbul, participatory actions - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAQCoXkrJo8 ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAQCoXkrJo8&t=132s 

studio 13 jazzensemble, Dortmund  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNfbCVm-kgE&t=190s 

motion composer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBPImFz-4E8&t=113s 

23.09.2022 

Dance Orchestra Paschulke 

II Workshops 

22-24.09.2022: Soundwhackers - Sling Orchestra - Bodypercussion and Soundpainting - Music Apps

III Final concert Europe InTakt 2022  

24.09.2022 

Opening:  piano plus - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evj6gkhl1MI 

Workshop results: Soundwhackers and Lightpainting - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9quSLQXPUYo&t=313s 

Workshop results: Sling-Orchester - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW0bBbAgfDY&t=73s 

Workshop results: Bodypercussion und Soundpainting - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRh8sho1qEE&t=18s 

Workshop results: Musik-Apps - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kox1Dw8PZxY 

Final: Europa InTakt 2022 piano plus - Ode to Joy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TSwbouHzcU 

All photos of all events © Oskar Neubauer

piano plus

The inclusive ensemble piano plus was founded in connection with the Dortmunder Modell: Musik in 2011 and has been directed by Claudia Schmidt from the beginning until today. Claudia Schmidt also writes the arrangements with voices that suit the respective abilities of the musicians - for three pianos, strings, electric guitar and voices. The ensemble plays a mixture of minimal music, world music, jazz and classical music. It performs throughout Germany and has been to concerts in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. 

Since November 2017, piano plus has been an inclusive ensemble in the Bochum Model at the Bochum Music School. More at https://pianoplus.tumblr.com/ 

KeKeÇa - Bodypercussion from Istanbul 

The ensemble KeKeÇa was founded in 2002 by Tugay Başar and Timuçin Gürer in Istanbul. Gökçe Gürçay, Ayşe Akarsu and Özgü Bulut joined in 2008 (https://www.kekeca.net/about/).  KeKeÇa is part of the international body music scene with artistic performances all over the world, was involved in the first IBMF - International Body Music Festival - in San Francisco in 2008 and hosted this festival itself in Istanbul in 2012. Their joy in the diversity of people brings the ensemble to workshops and courses at numerous institutions, universities and national and international festivals. At Anadolu University in Eskişehir, KeKeÇa has been working with deaf students for many years. With a group from Eskişehir, KeKeÇa was already a guest at Europa InTakt 2010.

Classic goes digital - also in body percussion? A playful expansion of the sound repertoire of body percussion is made possible by the development of so-called "intelligent textiles". "Smart textiles" have been and are often used in medicine and sports, but they also expand the possibilities of listening to and making music. The idea: a T-shirt is fitted with sensors that, when touched, produce a sound that can be programmed in advance as desired. 

The tinkerer and inventor Patrick Schäfer - see workshop Soundwhackers - has developed a piece of clothing that creates sounds at certain points when touched.  

Bodypercussion and the Rondo Alla Turca 

Mozart's third movement of Sonata No. 11 in A major, K. 331, is the popular Allegretto - Rondo alla Turca. Mozart, like Haydn or Beethoven, made several references to the sound of the military music of the Turkish Sultan's elite troops, the Janissaries. If "Turkish music" was noted in the scores of the time, it was clear that the instruments drums, cymbals, triangle and bell were meant. This kind of orientalism had become musically fashionable in Mozart's time - after the Turkish Sultan's army had been defeated by European troops outside Vienna a hundred years earlier. 

So in the "Rondo alla Turca", drums, cymbals, triangle and bells sound "in the background", as it were - why not make them audible in the body percussion via an intelligent shirt? 

So Patrick Schäfer took action, the "technical devices" went back and forth - and KeKeÇa worked out a new piece: Mozart accompanied by body percussion. What seemed easy at the beginning became a bit   and step by step more complicated - and finally not all effects wer functioning - after all. On the shoulders of two body percussionists, Ayse and Timucin,  were aluminium strips that triggered the accompanying sound of big drum (kös), small drums (nakkare), cymbals (zil) and bells (çevgen) to the last section of Mozart's Rondo. In the end: The stripe for the small drums didn`t work - and in the auditory nearly nobody heard and understood, what was going on. So - there`s a lot of potential for development.... 

All those involved are keen to continue working on the idea of the Soundshirt. Let's see what comes out of it. 

KeKeÇa - Rondo Alla Turca 

Yanna Pelser -Trio with Karin van Dijk and Florine Joosse, Rotterdam 

The My Breath My Music Foundation in Rotterdam has been supporting people with complex disabilities to make music at home and in public since 2008. Ruud van der Wel develops new electronic musical instruments and, for example, software that enables people to make music by looking at their laptops. The foundation's homepage informs about all developments and activities (https://mybreathmymusic.com/de/). 

Yanna Pelser, violist and music teacher with a Master's degree in 'Teachers Training Resonance Theory, Music Physiology for Musicians' in Berlin, works with the My Breath My Music Foundation in educational and artistic areas. One form of collaboration is the public performance of the Yanna Pelser Trio with Karin van Dijk and Florine Joosse. This collaboration was made possible through the support of North Sea Round Town (https://www.northsearoundtown.nl/), the fringe festival of NN North Sea Jazz.  

Karin van Dijk is a player and ambassador of the "Magic Flute", an electronic flute that can be played without hands (https://mybreathmymusic.com/de/karin). The pitch is determined by moving the head up or down (https://mybreathmymusic.com/de/magic-flute). 

Florine Joosse has been missing a few fingers and a leg since birth - but that does not stop her from developing into a singer and singer-songwriter (https://mybreathmymusic.com/interview-met-florine-joosse). 

For Europa InTakt 2022, the Yanna Pelser trio becomes a quintet... 

Second concert on 22.09.2022

All photos © Oskar Neubauer

Tabula Musica, Bern

Tabula Musica was founded in 2017 in Bern by professional musicians (https://tabulamusica.ch/orchester/). The orchestra combines traditional instruments such as violin, guitar and clarinet with music technology instruments such as soundbeam and skoog. The artistic direction creates sophisticated music with a clear share of new music.

Tabula Musica in Bern is a centre for accessible music-making and a pioneer of inclusive music education. Since 2017, musicians with and without impairments have been rehearsing and making music in an inclusive orchestra with great diversity thanks to individually adapted methods. By 2022, Tabula Musica is to be established as a musical training centre and integrated into a university - according to the homepage of Kultur inklusiv (https://www.kulturinklusiv.ch/de/label/labelpartner/tabula-musica-214.html). 

Hands Off Music, Cologne

The Anna Freud School in Cologne, which has a special focus on physical and motor development, has a special focus on music. The development of accessible musical instruments has been the goal of the "Hands Off Music" project (http://www.anna-freud-schule.de/index.php/schulleben/kultur#handsoff-music) since around 2012. Music teacher Ralf Kurley - who is no longer at the school - has not only built an "absolute eye-catcher" with the globophone, but also an instrument that can be played with the lightest of hand movements.  "The instrument, which visually resembles a combination of a UFO and a mushroom heater, reacts to shadow play with the help of sensors. Four people can simultaneously and together weave a sound carpet and create an atmospheric mood with different sounds" (http://www.anna-freud-schule.de/index.php/aktivitaeten/news/512-globophon-on-tour). 

Tobias Dehler and Barbara Roeder now teach how to play this instrument - and travel with pupils to their performances.  This is also the case in Dortmund. 

KeKeÇa - Bodypercussion from Istanbul - participatory action

Good People Orchestra, Novi Sad

The Good People Orchestra ensemble is based at the Milan Petrović School in the Novo Naselje district of Novi Sad. Founded in 1958, it was and still is a special school in elementary and secondary education. Novi Sad is the European Capital of Culture in 2022 and the Dr Milan Petrović institution is one of the "Schools of the Future" in Novi Sad, an award for institutions that are particularly concerned with the transmission of cultural and artistic creativity (https://visitns.rs/en/2022/04/06/schools-of-the-future-as-art-scenes/). 

The Good People Orchestra, founded and led by professional musician Zarko Sebic, is internationally positioned and located and works together with young people from Albania, for example, as part of the work of the "Regional Youth Cooperation Office - RYCO". It often uses the Soundbeam, but also other electronic instruments. Musically, folklore, blues, jazz improvisation and classical music can be heard. 

Robert Wechsler: Motion composer

The dancer Robert Wechsler has been involved with dance and technology throughout his artistic career; as early as 1974 he showed "his first interactive dance with self-built electronics" (http://www.robertwechsler.de/) The interplay of movement, technology and music has led to the development of the "Motion Composer", a sensor-based device that converts movement into sound. 

Wechsler makes the functioning of the Motion Composer clear through experimental practice: he asks people on stage with the aim of testing the functioning of the medium and thus spontaneously transforming movement into music. The tablet is used to select the sound that is to be heard when one or two people move in front of the small white device that can be seen in the photos below. 

studio 13 jazz ensemble, Dortmund 

Third concert on 23.09.2022

All photos © Oskar Neubauer

Tanzorchester Paschulke 

As part of the three-year project "Dortmund Model: Music" at the Technical University (TU) of Dortmund, which was carried out from 2010 to 2013, several new ensembles were created under the direction of Claudia Schmidt, including the Tanzorchester Paschulke. There are stories about "caretaker Paschulke", a not very eager contemporary; musically, there is Ruhrpott cultural multiculturalism, combined with dance interludes by the all the more active cleaning devils. The high-energy music of the Balkans with a high proportion of wind instruments results in a very unique and danceable mix of styles, which the band has christened Ruhrpott-Balkan. 

DiS

The association "gesamtkunstwerk", founded in 2008 as "kultur integrativ", organises the festival DiS - Dortmunder inklusives Soundfestival (https://www.gesamtkunstwerk-ev.de/dis) every two years. The date of Paschulke's performance at DiS 2022 was intertwined with the schedule of Europa InTakt 2022: The internationally travelling ensembles were to get to know the Paschulke dance orchestra. 

Dennis Sonne, member of the Green Party in the NRW state parliament, cultural politician and rapper, opened the evening. DiS goes everywhere!  

II Workshops

All photos © Oskar Neubauer

In a time budget of five times two hours, spread over Thursday 22/09, Friday 23/09 and Saturday 24/09, technical information was exchanged and musical events generated in the workshops. One goal - among others - was to develop a short musical presentation for the final concert. 

Workshop Soundwhackers

Direction: Patrick Schäfer, Saarbrücken 

Patrick Schäfer is a musician, teacher at the Förderschule körperliche und motorische Entwicklung am Webersberg (Homburg) and at the Kaufmännisches Berufsbildungszentrum Saarbrücken Halberg. He is the founder of the app music project iBand-Saar and developer of the "Soundwhacker". Since 2015, he has been conducting training courses at the Saarland State Institute for Education and Media (LPM), among others (http://musik-mit-apps.de/patrick-schaefer/).

The Soundwhackers are an electronic extension of the well-known Boomwhackers, which have long since found their way into music education in all types of schools and grades. Patrick Schäfer always has new ideas on how to extend the functionality of the Boomwhackers. The current expansion of the Soundwhackers by Microbits is implemented via holders that Schäfer prints out with his 3D printer. 

The materials for the newly developed Soundwhackers will be provided in the workshop, and the Soundwhackers will become the property of the participants. 

Workshop Sling-Orchestra  

Direction: Ruud van der Wel, Rotterdam 

How can you make music with your eyes? Can you play the flute without hands? How do you play an electronic saxophone with one arm? How do you play the keyboard with your headrest? In this workshop, Ruud van der Wel and two assistants, Mareike Ziegler and Katharina Kauruff, will present some of the instruments of the My Breath My Music Foundation. The instruments will become a field for experimentation and testing, but also the teaching methods will be shown and ways of achieving a good sound with sampled instruments and (virtual) MIDI. So that all participants can experience what it is like to play a musical instrument with a disability, arm slings will be distributed, as they are worn when one arm is not to be moved or spared. Hence the workshop title "Sling Orchestra". A small "sling orchestra" will perform at the final concert.

Ruud van der Wel is a respiratory therapist in Rotterdam. He works with severely disabled children, most of whom are affected by a progressive muscle disease. In 2000, he started developing and using electronic wind instruments. In 2005 he started the website www.mybreathmymusic.com. He now shares his experiences and musical practices throughout Europe. 

Workshop Bodypercussion and Soundpainting 

Direction: Ensemble KeKeCa, Istanbul

Timucin Gürer, Ayse Akarsu, Özge Bulut und Gökce Gürcay (Soundpainting)

The body is the main instrument in this workshop. Clapping, snapping, patting and stamping are some of the sound gestures that body percussion works with.  The original idea was to expand the body sound by using a "sound shirt" - but the development is still going on. Therefore, this time "only" body percussion and sound painting.

Sound painting is a universal "sign language" for musicians, actors, dancers and visual artists.  With the help of agreed gestures, smaller or even larger groups will create live composed pieces. In this work, the roles change. Everyone can both react to the signs - follow - and become a sound painter in a leading function - lead. The sound painting language was developed in 1974 by the composer and conductor Walter Thompson, New York.

KeKeÇa Body Percussion Ensemble was founded in Istanbul in 2002 and quickly gained an internationally recognised reputation as an ensemble that works both artistically and educationally. From the beginning of the performances and workshops, people with disabilities have been involved, so inclusion is a natural part of their work. (https://www.kekeca.net/) 

Workshop Musik-Apps 

Direction: Sven Kirsten, Bochum

The added value of music apps for people with intellectual disabilities is still being discussed - admittedly, it can only be experienced in concrete application. In the workshop, intuitive music apps and their application possibilities will be tested "solo" as well as in interaction with other digital and analogue instruments and their benefits will be reflected upon.

Sven Kirsten is a musician in the field of jazz and pop, a music teacher and special needs teacher at a special school with a focus on mental development. He is experienced in working with various inclusive bands such as "Collective One". 

III Final concert on 24.09.2022

All photos © Oskar Neubauer

At the end of Europa InTakt 2022, the ensemble piano plus presents Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" in several variations created in the workshops...

Workshop Soundwhackers -  Presentation at the final concert

Workshop Sling-Orchestra  - Presentation at the final concert

Workshop Bodypercussion and Soundpainting - Presentation at the final concert

Workshop Musik-Apps - Presentation at the final concert

With piano plus, Europe InTakt 2022 begins and ends

Thanks to 

Europa InTakt 2022 was made possible by the extensive and generous financial support of the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation Essen and the Bernd Jochheim Foundation Dortmund. Without the dedicated support of the Centre for Higher Education zhb of TU Dortmund University, Europa InTakt 2022 could not have taken place. Thanks are also due to Dr Eva Krebber-Steinberger, staff member at the former Chair of Music Education and Music Therapy in Pedagogy and Rehabilitation with Disabilities, as well as to Dr Meike Wieczorek from the current Department of Music and Movement in Rehabilitation and Pedagogy with Disabilities at the Faculty of Rehabilitation Sciences at TU Dortmund University. 

Claudia Schmidt, director of the participating ensembles piano plus and studio 13 contributed imaginatively and tirelessly to the quality of the concert programme and made the compilation of all workshop versions of Beethoven's Ode to Joy in the final concert a very very beautiful musical event. 

The workshop lecturers from Rotterdam, Istanbul, Bochum and Saarbrücken were great, as were the ensembles from Bern, Dortmund, Cologne, Istanbul, Novi Sad and Rotterdam. Their respective pedagogical and artistic work cannot be appreciated highly enough. 

Thanks go to the EUCREA association (https://www.eucrea.de/) in Hamburg for suggestions on content, which have been incorporated into Europa InTakt 2022 via the European symposium "soundform" in 2019. 

Thanks also go to those responsible for the venues. Especially the concerts in the St. Marienkirche in Dortmund gave Europe InTakt 2022 a special atmosphere. The cheerful and technically well-equipped Retro-Cafè in the Fritz-Henßler-Haus in Dortmund was a good place for a successful conclusion. 

Thanks to Denis Cosmar and crew for technology and lighting: always friendly, always calm, always constructively helpful. The collaboration was a pleasure.

Oskar Neubauer deserves special thanks for the photographic documentation of all parts of Europa InTakt. Without his view of the detail as well as the whole, Europa InTakt would only be a wealth of experiences and memories of those who were present. With Oskar Neubauer's pictures, Europa InTakt 2022 is not only documented, but also comes alive as an aesthetic event...

Special thanks also go to Jörg Lohner and Katharina Herkommer, the duo "Bildmischer" from Regensburg, for the film documentation of the concerts. It will still take a little while - but then Europa InTakt 2022 will remain present on the internet and will serve as a musical-aesthetic example and role model for inclusion for a long time to come.  

The fact that the Federal Government Commissioner for the Affairs of People with Disabilities, Mr Jürgen Dusel, opened the Europa InTakt event remains an important political signal: music and inclusion is a socially relevant topic. Thank you for the opening speech! 

 Ohne die Rose tun wir`s nicht, da können wir gar nicht mehr denken! 

We won't do it without the rose, we can't think any more! 

Greeting and outlook by Irmgard Merkt 

Oktober 2022 

First a personal preliminary remark. Twelve years ago, at the time of Europa InTakt 2010, I was on "active duty" as a professor at the TU Dortmund University. Designing the professorship "Music Education and Music Therapy in Rehabilitation and Pedagogy with Disabilities" from 1991 onwards was an incredible privilege: I could do what was close to my heart in research and teaching. Throughout my professional life, I have always had at heart an open view of the diversity of musical forms of expression all over the world - including my personal love of the music that is called "classical" in this country - and the communication of this open view in seminars, lectures and further training. Recipients of this open view, which incidentally does not work without a certain amount of self-distance and humour, were and are students, interested people from many professions and people with impairments. For 10 years, in the context of the Dortmunder Modell: Musik project, I led the inclusive choir "stimmig", in which employees from workshops for people with disabilities and students sang together. Shaping university teaching in this way has always been a particular pleasure for me.

For eight years now in so-called retirement, I still can't manage to do what some people expect of a retiree: simply rest. But why should I rest? The social topic of inclusion, the cultural-political and artistic topic of music and inclusion is alive, it continues to develop. The next generations are "digital natives" with new ideas and possibilities for action. It is the task of thinking and feeling people of all ages to look at new developments with interest and/or joy, or even better, to contribute to them - also critically.

I myself could not have foreseen that the TU Dortmund would once again be a venue for Europa InTakt after a long break. It is thanks to the former rector of TU Dortmund University, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Ursula Gather, who, as the current chairwoman of the Krupp Foundation, thought a 10th anniversary of Europa InTakt would be a good idea. The Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation provided the largest share of the necessary funds for our event. The Bernd Jochheim Foundation, like the City of Dortmund, contributed to making it possible for Europa InTakt to take place in the form announced here. Thought to take place in 2020, it became 2022 for well-known reasons.

The past years have had some unprecedented learning tasks not only for European societies. Empathy and looking at essentials in combination with an open view of the diversity of people are just some of these learning chapters. They are obviously being learned at different speeds here and there. Who could have imagined a few years ago that the motto Europa InTakt - the first event of this name took place here in Dortmund in 2003 - would one day take on such a political dimension as it has today?

Some people can't imagine anything else either, on a smaller scale. Music and inclusion is a lot of work, it's true. Art is beautiful, but it takes a lot of work, as Karl Valentin already knew. Music and inclusion is not only, but always as cheerful as it is interesting AND means not only, but always good music. That is what it is all about.

Europa InTakt 2022 is dedicated to new artistic and technical developments in the field of digital media in combination with traditional instruments. Classic goes digital means two things. "Classic" means the traditional and for human development indispensable activity of touching and setting things in motion, in our case instruments, means the necessity of sensual experience of the law of cause and effect. "Classic" also means musical genres such as baroque, classical, jazz, music of the world - and forms of music-making such as improvisation or reproduction, "Classic" also means interdisciplinary such as music and movement or music and light art. Digital means looking at what traditional instruments cannot do. Amplifying the sound of an instrument so that a person with severe disabilities can play adequately in a demanding ensemble. Turning involuntary movements into music. Playing with effects. And so on. Experiencing the law of cause and effect in a way never known before. Classic goes digital does not want a contradiction, but mutual inspiration.

In this spirit, I wish you all cheerful, inspiring and intact days in Dortmund!

Outlook follows....

 Bernd Jochheim Stiftung