infra.norma.meta I.

 

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RESIDENCY PROGRAM FOR CONDUCTORS

[September 2026 - June 2027]

 

An international residency for conductors to develop, produce, rehearse, and publicly realize new works, programs, and models of conducting practice.

 

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PROGRAM AT A GLANCE

 

Program period: September 2026–June 2027
Format: Four online seminars, followed by an on-site residency
On-site location: Bled, Slovenia (EU)
Public presentation: Seventh Bled Contemporary Music Week
Application deadline: September 15, 2026

 

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FORMAT

 

Stage I. | September 28, 29, 2026

- 2 online seminars

- Presentation and exchange of participants’ artistic practices and portfolios

- Initial articulation of conducting concepts, programs, and ideals

- Q&A

 

Stage II. | November 30, December 1, 2026

- 2 online seminars

- Score reading, analysis, rehearsal planning, and critical reflection

- Preparation for the subsequent residency, production, and performances at the festival

- Q&A

 

Stage III. | June 2027

- On-site residency at the seventh Bled Contemporary Music Week in Bled, Slovenia

- Artistic development, rehearsals, and performances

 

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ABOUT THE RESIDENCY

 

infra.norma.meta I. is an international, process-based residency dedicated to conducting as an artistic, interpretative, collaborative, curatorial, organizational, and production practice. It brings together conductors within an extended framework that moves from the articulation of individual practices and project proposals to score study, rehearsal design, production planning, ensemble work, and public performance at the seventh Bled Contemporary Music Week in Bled, Slovenia (EU).

 

The program unfolds through four online seminars, and a concluding on-site residency. This structure provides the continuity required to develop a conducting project beyond the compressed conditions of a single rehearsal period or masterclass. Participants are invited to formulate, test, revise, and publicly realize artistic propositions through presentation, research, programming, score reading, structural analysis, comparative listening, interpretative experimentation, rehearsal planning, production design, and critical reflection.

 

Projects may emerge from newly composed works, existing repertoire, developing programs, interdisciplinary propositions, expanded performance formats, alternative ensemble structures, or experimental models of rehearsal and production. The central concern is not adherence to a particular genre or aesthetic orientation, but the conductor’s capacity to articulate a precise artistic proposition and examine the conditions required for its realization.

 

The residency positions the conductor not only as an interpreter of musical texts, but also as an initiator of artistic processes, a mediator among distinct forms of knowledge, a designer of rehearsal situations, a collaborator within collective structures, and an agent operating inside institutional and material systems of production.

 

Rather than treating conducting as a final act applied to a project whose artistic and practical conditions have already been determined, infra.norma.meta foregrounds the conductor’s involvement from conception through public realization. Programming, interpretation, rehearsal, communication, spatial organization, technical planning, production, and audience address are considered interdependent elements of a continuously developing musical situation.

 

Through this extended structure, participants investigate how conducting shapes the circumstances under which music becomes possible; how interpretative propositions encounter the embodied and collective realities of ensemble practice; how rehearsal converts analysis into shared action; how institutional and technical infrastructures influence artistic decisions; and how leadership may operate as a responsive practice of listening, mediation, coordination, and responsibility.

 

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MENTORS

 

Dr. Alastair White 

Urban Megušar, Double M.Mus.

Dr. Niki Zohdi

Dr. Dré A. Hočevar 

 

 

COORDINATOR

 

Brina Kren