infra.norma.meta I. 

 

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PROGRAM STRUCTURE

 

The residency unfolds through three consecutive stages. Each stage has a distinct function within the overall process, moving from the presentation and conceptual articulation of participants’ practices to detailed score analysis, rehearsal and production planning, on-site development, and public performance.

 

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Stage I. | September 2026

2 online seminars

 

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

 

Participants introduce their conducting practices, portfolios, previous work, current projects, and central questions. These presentations create a shared context for understanding the interpretative, analytical, curatorial, technical, production-related, and relational positions represented within the program.

Participants present the repertoires, scores, programs, recordings, research materials, rehearsal models, or production frameworks they intend to develop. They are encouraged to articulate not only what they wish to perform, but why the project is artistically necessary, which conditions it requires, and how conducting functions within its realization.

 

The seminars enable participants to identify the questions that will guide subsequent development. Attention may be directed toward the relation between programming and interpretation, between analysis and rehearsal, between artistic ideals and material circumstances, and between conductorial authority and ensemble knowledge.

 

The first stage also introduces infra, norma, and meta as conceptual coordinates through which participants may examine their own practices.

 

Stage I. includes:

- 2 online seminars

- Presentation of participants’ artistic practices and portfolios

- Introduction of previous projects, methodologies, and areas of inquiry

- Presentation of conducting concepts, programs, repertoire, and artistic propositions

– Exchange among participating conductors

– Discussion of interpretative, curatorial, technical, and production-related interests

– Initial articulation of conducting concepts, programs, and artistic ideals

– Identification of analytical, practical, institutional, and logistical questions

– Consideration of the relation between project concept and conditions of realization

– Introduction to the conceptual framework of infra, norma, and meta

– Q&A

 

The objective of this stage is not to finalize projects, but to establish a sufficiently precise basis for their subsequent development. Participants begin to clarify what their projects require, which assumptions they carry, how their artistic and production dimensions interact, and where critical exchange may contribute to transformation.

 

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Stage II. | November-December 2026

2 online seminars

 

The second stage focuses on detailed project development and on the transition from artistic proposition to rehearsable, producible, and publicly realizable form.

 

Participants present developed programs, selected scores, analyses, interpretative plans, rehearsal designs, comparative recordings, technical documents, spatial concepts, or production schedules. The group engages with these materials through close reading, contextual research, comparative listening, structural analysis, discussion, and critical reflection.

 

Depending on the character of each project, inquiry may concern form, tempo, rhythm, phrasing, articulation, balance, instrumentation, notation, edition, spatial organization, electronics, ensemble configuration, rehearsal sequence, technical coordination, production schedules, or the relationship between conceptual premises and audible outcomes.

 

Score reading is treated as an analytical and imaginative practice connecting structure, sound, gesture, time, ensemble behavior, and interpretation. Participants consider how analytical knowledge becomes communicable in rehearsal, which priorities should organize limited time, and how a plan can remain responsive to musicians and emergent circumstances.

 

The seminars also examine the relation between analysis and decision. A conductor may possess a detailed structural understanding of a work without yet knowing how that understanding should affect gesture, rehearsal sequence, verbal communication, pacing, or ensemble listening. Stage II addresses this translation from conceptual knowledge to collective action.

 

Rehearsal planning is approached as an artistic and ethical activity. The sequencing of work, distribution of attention, formulation of feedback, pacing of repetition, and treatment of uncertainty all influence what an ensemble can discover and how musicians experience the process.

 

Production planning is examined with equal precision. Acoustic space, technical systems, personnel, equipment, access, timing, and institutional coordination are treated not as peripheral logistics, but as factors that can alter the artistic form and public meaning of a project.

 

Stage II includes:

– 2 online seminars

– Presentation of developed programs, scores, analyses, and project materials

– Collective score reading

– Structural, interpretative, historical, and contextual analysis

– Comparative listening and examination of performance histories

– Discussion of editions, notation, instrumentation, and musical materials

– Articulation of interpretative priorities

– Translation of analytical propositions into rehearsal strategies

– Development of rehearsal plans, sequences, time allocations, and communication methods

– Critical reflection on the artistic premises and production conditions of each project

– Identification of questions requiring practical testing or further research

– Consideration of technical, spatial, personnel, and logistical requirements

– Development of production and realization strategies

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

– Continued engagement with infra, norma, and meta

– Q&A

 

By the conclusion of Stage II, participants should possess a clearly articulated understanding of the artistic, analytical, interpretative, relational, technical, and logistical conditions required for the on-site phase.

 

Projects need not be regarded as definitively complete. They should instead be sufficiently developed to enter an intensive process of rehearsal, testing, listening, revision, production, and public realization.

 

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Stage III. | June 2027

On-site residency at the seventh Bled Contemporary Music Week

 

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

 

During the on-site residency, participants work directly with musicians, ensembles, collaborators, and production teams. Projects developed through the online stages enter rehearsal, where interpretative propositions, communication methods, technical plans, and production strategies are tested under concrete acoustic, spatial, temporal, embodied, and interpersonal conditions.

 

The on-site phase is not conceived solely as the execution of prior decisions. Rehearsal remains an active stage of artistic development. Participants may discover that analytical priorities require revision, gestures communicate differently than anticipated, ensemble knowledge redirects an interpretation, or spatial and technical conditions generate previously unforeseen possibilities.

 

Conductors develop their projects through repeated cycles of preparation, listening, directing, observation, discussion, adjustment, and reflection. They evaluate not only the resulting sound, but also the processes through which decisions are communicated, musicians are engaged, time is organized, and responsibility is distributed.

 

This phase creates a direct encounter between the conductor’s proposed model of practice and the contingencies of collective musical work. It tests whether concepts remain meaningful when they meet bodies, instruments, personalities, acoustics, technologies, schedules, fatigue, resistance, concentration, and the productive unpredictability of rehearsal.

 

Stage III includes:

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

– Work with musicians, ensembles, collaborators, and production teams

– Artistic development and practical realization of participating projects

– Continued score study and interpretative preparation

– Individual preparation and ensemble rehearsals

– Testing of rehearsal plans and communication strategies

– Interpretative experimentation, listening, and refinement

– Revision of artistic or organizational methods where required

– Exploration of acoustic, spatial, technical, and institutional conditions

– Production and preparation for public presentation

– Performances of developed works and programs

 

The public performances culminate the residency while remaining connected to the processes through which the projects were formed. They present interpretation, leadership, rehearsal, production, reflection, and collaboration as interdependent dimensions of conducting practice.

 

Where applicable, presentations may include premieres, new programs, first public realizations, developed interpretative frameworks, or experimental conducting and production formats.