The starting point for this musical and educational module, as well as for the entire project, is re-thinking, exploring and developing new approaches to learning of music. By placing emphasis on listening to each other, it aspires to open and expand the musical worlds of young teenagers and encourage them to create music together, giving advantage at the same time to collective creation rather than performing and interpreting traditional notation. Workshop moderators offer broader comprehension and understanding of music to participants, showing them diversity of musical expressions in parallel to development of performing skills and playing acoustic and electronic instruments. One of the most important objectives of this project is nurturing creative freedom among youth, encouraging open-mindedness, and making them aware of their auditive perception.
In his group work with teenagers, Nenad Sinkauz has focused especially on collective creation of soundscapes and group improvisation based on predetermined atmospheres, situations and visualizations. He dedicated part of the workshops to teaching them how to use guitar pedals and effects, exploration of different sounds that instruments produce and voice processing. His methodology includes also practicing the sound density individually or between band members, practicing playing in smaller groups such as trios and duets, as well as different rhythmic exercises (holding a beat, breaking up the rhythm, groove, accelerando and ritardando and similar).
Nenad Kovačić has dedicated his time to preparation of instruments, playing electric guitar using an EBow, playing instruments with objects such as glass bottle or wooden sticks, and exploring the sound spectrum of a drum set in relation to the type of drumsticks used by the drummer, as well as performance techniques. During the workshops he has joined the band with his bass guitar, placing emphasis not only on listening to each other during the performance, but also on reacting musically to each other and the importance of gradual development of a certain musical idea.
Pavle Jovanović focused on elaboration of musical details, practicing rhythm and dynamics, and developing their performing skills. Jovanović has also worked with the participants on understanding and using musical terminology, giving them a deeper insight into constitutive elements of a musical work as well as its totality. He introduced the members of the experimental band Sešija created through this workshop to the field of graphical notation, using a graphical score „Construction 3.1.“ by a Croatian composer Zoran Ščekić as a case study. This score was performed by the band and the mentor together on their final concert.
Musicologist Davorka Begović, that also coordinates the entire project, has developed this educational module and the content of individual workshops together with other mentors. By watching a documentary film together, developing and realizing listening sessions and moderating discussions with and among participants, she has introduced them to the field of experimental music and broadened their understanding and comprehension of music. She has initiated and facilitated talks and debates among the band members, analysing as well their individual improvisation sessions.
Sešija band:
Dan Herceg - drums
Bartol Knežević - guitar
Jan Knežević - synth
Mak Rizvanović - synth
Filip Šarić - guitar
„What I find the most interesting in this workshop is a new approach to music that I haven't encounter before, and for me the most challenging part was learning how to use a synthesiser and discover perfect synthesiser sounds.“ Jan Knežević (13)
„The most interesting part for me was how I was encouraged to create new music on my own.“ Mak Rizvanović (14)
„The most useful knowledge I bring back with me from this workshop is that music does not have to be always in the same rhythm or reading scores or playing other songs; music can also be experimentation and creation of new sounds and compositions, even new songs.“ Dan Herceg (15)
Nenad Sinkauz (HR)
Nenad Sinkauz (HR) works as a composer and performer in musical, theatrical, contemporary dance, film, and multimedia projects. He obtained his master's degree in ethnomusicology in Padua, and in his artistic work, he explores unconventional musical forms and expressions. He is also oriented towards exploring improvised music, and his musical roots stem from the underground punk and metal scene of the 1990s. Through performance and composition, which are closely connected in his work, he is interested in the dialogue between acoustic and electronic instruments, the hybridity of combining musical and theatrical principles in performance as a research orientation for new performance formats. Sinkauz has been actively performing in Croatia and abroad for two decades and composes music for film and theater. He has won four Golden Arenas at the Pula Film Festival for film music. In 2002, he founded the band East Rodeo, collaborating with a number of international jazz and rock musicians, blending avant-rock, live electronics, noise, experimental, and improvised music. Sinkauz is the author and performer in the acclaimed audiovisual project ...day of the year and the co-founder of the international festival of experimental and improvised music, Audioart in Pula. Currently, apart from guest appearances with the multidisciplinary project Aphasia by director Jelena Jureša, he is involved in the experimental band Roj Osa and the improvisational big band CRI Orchestra (both under his own label Kopaton Records), the multimedia project Sicomat, and the band Truth ≠ Tribe, which blends contemporary club music, African and Balkan rhythms with the energy of progressive rock.
Nenad Kovačić (HR)
Musician and composer Nenad Kovačić (HR) has graduated Ethnology and Sociology at the University of Zagreb. He has been active as a musician since 1997 and acts as a percussionist and explorer of the Balkan and west African rhythmics. He is member of many bands and groups, such as Antenat, Sevdah Takht Damira Imamovića (Glitterbeat Records), Afion, Mimika, Truth≠Tribe, Chant Electronique, and he actively performs throughout the world. Within many different artistic projects Kovačić is very active and present on the Croatian contemporary music scene, mostly focused on improvised music and musical experiments. Since 2007 he has worked as the author of the theatre and film music and has composed music for around 50 theatre plays and documentary movies. One of his most important interests in music is traditional music (especially from the Balkans, Mediterranean and West Africa) he has been learning during different workshops, seminars, sessions and travel - among others also from the greatest masters of the west African percussions in Guinea, Mali and Burkina Faso and in 2008 he has started leading workshops focused on west African rhythms and taught more than 200 students so far.
Pavle Jovanović (HR)
Pavle Jovanović (HR) graduated in jazz guitar from the conservatory in Klagenfurt, in the class of Professor Agostino Di Giorgio, in 2011. After his studies, he returned to Zagreb, where he collaborated with various ensembles and musicians such as the Croatian Radio and Television Jazz Orchestra, Cantus Ensemble, and the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb. At the same time, he founded his own projects Cromatik 5 and PEEK 3, in which he explores jazz composition and improvisation. In 2016, he co-founded the ensemble Abstract Construction Collective with Zoran Šćekić, whose expression is based on free improvisation and graphic compositions. They performed at the Music Biennale Zagreb 2017 alongside Chris Jarrett. In the summer of 2020, he completed his master's studies in jazz guitar in Vienna under the guidance of Professor Martin Koller. He works as an educator in the fields of classical, jazz, and experimental music.
Davorka Begović (HR)
Davorka Begović (b. 1984, Zagreb) is a freelance musicologist and sound curator from Zagreb, Croatia, working in the field of contemporary experimental music and related art forms. For the last 18 years, she has been working in the field of culture and art as a selector and a producer, primarily of music projects, but also theatre, contemporary dance, multimedia and film projects. As a member of KONTEJNER she runs the international project Re-Imagine Europe, an experimental sound event Gibanja and other sound related projects. As an associate, she lectures Sound as the Visual Art Expression at the Animated Film and New Media Department at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. She runs experimental sound listening sessions and workshops, publishes critics and articles, writes texts for discography and other releases.
