Deep Listening Day

Listening with heightened awareness towards sound, place, and presence 

On 2nd of May, Orgelpark hosts a full day dedicated to Deep Listening, a practice that asks us to slow down, stop filtering the world out, and start letting it in.

The practice of Deep Listening draws attention to the difference between hearing and listening. We hear without trying, the way we breathe. Listening however is a conscious act of attention, an openness to what is there rather than what we expect. It is this distinction that sits at the heart of Deep Listening, a practice developed by American composer Pauline Oliveros beginning in the 1970s. Deep Listening incorporates meditation, breathing, and mindfulness and the practice has since grown into workshops, retreats, performances, and a body of artistic work that continues to evolve.

On 2 May, the Orgelpark offers a full day shaped by this practice. The programme goes beyond a conventional concert and offers participative elements through a curated sequence of experiences designed to draw visitors into an attentive relationship with sound, space, and each other.

Deep Listening Day is a curated sequence of experiences designed to draw visitors into a considered relationship with sound, space, and each other.

The day programme consists of three elements – a workshop, an installation with performance, and a closing concert. 

Deep Listening Workshop – 13:15 

The programme opens with an immersive Deep Listening Workshop led by Kristin Norderval, a pioneering composer, elecronic musician and vocalist known for her embodied and exploratory approach to sound. Norderval worked in close collaboration with Pauline Oliveros and was a member of her ensemble “New Circle Five”, contributing to the development and transmission of Deep Listening practice internationally.

This 2-hour Deep Listening workshop focuses on the interplay between Focal Listening and Global Listening. Through guided exercises, participants will explore different modes of attention: from entering deeply into the inner life of a single sound, to opening awareness toward the full sonic environment.

Through body awareness exercises and listening meditation, participants are invited to expand their attention gradually to become aware of what they normally tune out. The workshop welcomes all participants, no prior knowledge needed. Participants are recommended to wear comfortable clothes. During parts of the session, participants may be invited to sit or lie on the floor.

The Infinite Garden – 16:15

The Infinite Garden during a previous presentation at Zone2Source

At the centre of the day is The Infinite Garden, a sound installation and live performance by bassist and composer Dario Calderone. 

The project consisting of an installation and performance questions how we relate with our human and natural environment through listening. The Infinite Garden aims to describe and recreate a totally different political model, in which divisions and borders unveil their fragility and uselessness. While the complexity of our present life makes us want to cancel uncomfortable realities, creating our own beautifully balanced gardens, The Infinite Garden questions about reconciliation of contradictions, and inclusiveness. It encourages a global way of listening, in which there is a constant communication between different spaces and dimensions, between sounds from outside of the performative space and the inside, between the environment and the humans, between the vibrating air and our bodies, between our communities and the individual.

The composition draws inspiration from the behaviour of plants: growth, interdependence, responsiveness to conditions. Microphones installed in the surrounding Vondelpark – in the trees, near the water, in the soil – stream the outside soundscape live into the concert hall. Through this, the wind through branches, water sounds, the distant soundscapes of the city all become part of the musical space.

Within this expanded acoustic field, four performers enter a continuous dialogue with the environment and each other. The piece is performed by Gareth Davis on bass clarinet, Naomi Sato on sho, Aurèlie Nyirabikali Lierman on voice and shruti box, and Dario Calderone himself on contrabass.

The installation itself extends through the main hall of Orgelpark, creating a listening environment that you enter gradually, rather than all at once.

 The same CD is released on the day of the performance.

Closing Concert – 20:15

Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016)

Exploring the edges of softness and intimate presence 

The day closes with a concert consisting of two compositions embodying the core of Deep Listening – Pauline Oliveros‘s Arctic Air, and The Memory of Now, a text score by IONE.

The first piece in the programme, The Memory of Now, is a text score by IONE, a playwright, director and longtime creative partner of Pauline Oliveros. The piece is performed on harmonium by pianist Reinier van Houdt. IONE’s work bridges the literary and the sonic, carrying a quiet, reflective weight.

The second piece is Oliveros’s own Arctic Air, a gentle work for organs, voice, accordion, and other instruments. The composition explores the edges of softness, guiding the attention to just inside and just outside the ear. During the performance, musicians move among the audience, at times playing close to listeners, creating an intimate presence.

The Closing Concert is the perfect culmination of everything that the Deep Listening Day has been building toward – listening with care and attention, together.

It is the perfect culmination of everything that the day has been building toward – listening with care and attention, together

Musicians
Trevor Grahl, Claudio F. Baroni, Reinier van Houdt, ORGANS
Aurelie Nyirabikali, VOCALS
Naomi Sato, sho
Claudio Jacomucci, Accordion
Gareth Davis, Bass Clarinet
Dario Calderone, Baritone euphonium

Attend the full Deep Listening Day programme for the full experience consisting of three elements, or join for a part.
Tickets are available via Orgelpark, with combined tickets available at discounted price. 

One programme part: €20
Two parts: €30
Full day ticket with three parts: €40  

Dario Calderone and the Orgelpark have kindly gifted a limited amount of free tickets to Subbacultcha members for the Infinite Garden and the Closing Concert.