NOW OR NEVER

Now or Never is an open, international network for artists working with sound and music and feeling the climate emergency. It is a legacy project following our participation in a Creative Climate Leadership training course run by Julie’s Bicycle, where we were exposed to the latest research and actions on the climate front from the creative sector.

We set up the network to help move more artists from a position of pessimism, hopelessness and spectatorship towards active and passionate participation and empowerment. Many people feel a huge gap between individual action and meaningful global transformation, but forming networks can help to join the dots.

Together with other sectors such as culture, science, agriculture and nature conservation, and reaching out transnationally to composers and artists in and from all countries and continents, we wanted to create a compassionate space to contribute to restoring our planet and the health and balance of humans and sentient beings. Through the network, we brainstorm perspectives, knowledge, topics of concern, campaigns and projects.

From documentaries and media, but also from sound art, we know the sounds of climate breakdown: calving glaciers, roaring planes, belching industry, as well as the emptiness of species falling silent, rich soundscapes thinning out, daily polyphonic talk of eco-collapse, sustainability and climate goals.

Sonic relations between humans and our surroundings have figured directly in the creative use of acoustically rich spaces and resonant rocks, such as in Bayaka yodelling, Tulva throat singing, kulning, joik, ringing stones and singing stones and stalacpipe organs, and in western classical program music (The four seasons, Symphonie pastorale, La mer, Pines of Rome, Cantus arcticus, Catalogue d’oiseaux)

And in these present turbulent times, sonic agency makes itself heard in organized or spontaneous street protests, rooftop chanting and all kinds of singing and music-making as forms of resistance in warzones and under conditions of oppression.

Composers and sound artists are reaching increasingly into hybrid contexts, where the specifics of site and situation, community engagement, acoustic ecology, sound walks, field recording, and direct musical contact with social and environmental milieus are activated in performance and listening. Music and sound art are highly relevant and potent in helping us shape our individual and common experiences of climate and ways to alleviate its breakdown.

The Now or Never network is part of the Danish Composers’ Society’s strategic climate work, following on from the Music Declares an Emergency pledge. The network meets monthly online with short presentations, updates and discussion, and additionally in real life at special events.

In 2022 we held a fishbowl talk at the Time to Listen conference at Akademie der Künste in Berlin, and a participatory event at Minu Festival.

Now or Never is coordinated through a Facebook group with 100 members from many countries, where everyone can post their own projects and campaigns. Our main meeting language is English. The network is open to anyone worldwide with a creative practice in sound and music, and guests from other sectors are very welcome.

Whether you are just beginning to wonder how to adapt your practice to the new reality of climate change, or whether you are already experienced in actively working to stop climate breakdown as a private individual or professional artist, you can share questions, dilemmas and actions, so that more creative artists are aware of the possibilities and channels available to them for making a positive contribution. Wherever you are up to in your creative climate practice, you are welcome.

Contact the Now or Never Facebook group directly to request membership, or write to us at arashpandi@yahoo.com or jh@ komponistforeningen.dk.

Siden 1888 har de nordiske komponistforeninger organiseret festivalen Nordiske Musikdage. Festivalen har haft mange forskellige former - en årlig begivenhed, en biennale, en festival uden et fast interval – og indtil nu har de nordiske komponistforeninger skiftedes til at organisere festivalen. Dermed har den også turneret i Norden med enkelte afstikkere til Berlin og London.

Med Nordiske Musikdage i Island 2022 lukker vi for nu kapitlet med den nordisk turnerende festival og tager hul på et nyt; fra i år organiserer Nordisk Komponistråd, det fælles forum af klassiske komponistforeninger i Norden, hver festival i fællesskab.

Formålet er at styrke Nordiske Musikdage som en international platform og et mødested for musik fra Norden, så den i endnu højere grad kan generere netværk og muligheder for international udveksling mellem komponister og aktører i og uden for Norden. Samtidig er det intentionen at udvikle festivalens arbejde med musikalske selvforståelser og nordisk identitet, så festivalen fremover i højere grad end nu bliver vært for debat, undersøgelse og realisering af en bredere palet af kunstneriske udtryk og kulturimpulser fra hele den nordiske region.

Dansk Komponistforening varetager på vegne af Nordisk Komponistråd projektledelsen af festivalen de kommende år. 2023 er et udviklingsår, og i 2024 finder den første festival i sin nye form sted – i

Skotland med Glasgow som omdrejningspunkt. Et bredt netværk af musikaktører i Skotland arbejder sammen om et fokus på nordisk musik gennem hele 2024, og Nordiske Musikdage vil finde sted i starten af november næste år som en af hovedbegivenhederne.

Nordisk Komponistråd har desuden besluttet, at Nordiske Musikdage fremover skal være en bæredygtig international festival i både grøn, økonomisk og social forstand. Under Nordiske Musikdage 2022 i Island mødtes Nordisk Komponistråd og medarbejdere fra alle de nordiske sekretariater for sammen at udvikle og diskutere en bæredygtighedsstrategi for Nordiske Musikdage. Vi arbejder i skrivende stund på at færdiggøre strategipapiret med afsæt i de mange input og beslutninger.

Kuratorteamet for Nordiske Musikdage

2024 består af de fire komponister Lauri Supponen (FI), Guoste Tamulynaite (LT/NO), Tróndur Bogason (FO) og Pippa Murphy (SCO) samt Gillian Moore (SCO), tidligere leder for musikprogrammet på Southbank Center i London og pt ansat ved Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Kuratorteamet tilrettelægger festivalens program og mødtes første gang i Glasgow 14.-16. marts 2023.

Hold øje med DKFs hjemmeside, nyhedsbrev, Facebook og Instagram hvor vi løbende vil informere om nyt vedr. festivalen, herunder open calls for komponister i Norden og Skotland.