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The composition class as an aesthetic think tank

I refer to my text on composition classes today. Young composers, come to Basel to study composition! Application deadline is 28.2.
We are an enthusiastic team of composers, instrumentalists, audio designers, improvisation and music theory, dedicated to New Music in its full range. We have many collaborative projects such as with Basel Sinfonietta, Theater Basel, Zeiträume Festival, Art Basel. The beautiful city of Basel is right on the border with Germany and France, central in Europe, close to Zurich and Freiburg, there is a lot of culture, music, art and theatre.

There were times when „school“ was a success label in music. Notre Dame School, Mannheim School, New German School, Second Viennese School, New York School, Old School Hip Hop, New School Hip Hop, or in photography the Düsseldorf School; in philosophy, the story goes anyway from the Platonic Academy to the Frankfurt School. These names appear in books and are used habitually in the language. Here, attitude and practice united the generations. Terms were coined.
If a composer wanted to proclaim or found a „school“ today, a Shitstorm would be guaranteed, from all sides. These times are over; a school, that is, the general consensus in composition education, would mean style, reifying standard, and if something should not be, it is that a teacher passes on a teaching. This is forbidden in hyperindividualism. In any case, the tradition of New Music is primarily the break with tradition. Everyone, it seems, agrees and is glad that there are no more schools, even retrospectively it seems ridiculous if someone today tries to launch another ’school‘ pseudo-historiographically somewhere in the past. And didn’t the pupils even call their Schoenberg „master“? School means authority, rules, dogma, sectarian elite circles and potential abuse of power.

https://www.nmz.de/artikel/the-composition-class-as-an-aesthetic-think-tank