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Whether they make it a specialty or just a one-off adventure, more and more composers are collaborating with music schools and conservatories, writing for their students. Here's a cross-view!
What role does composing for children and teenagers play in your work?
Alexandros Markeas: Almost in spite of myself, I'm recognized as a specialist in the genre, especially for collective operations: I often receive commissions from conservatories, Démos, Orchestre à l'école,El Sistema Europe... It's an important part of my activity as a musician. I write a lot for choir, for piano (that's my instrument), for small atypical chamber music groups, a lot of miniatures for two or three instruments, and pieces for youth orchestra.
Jonathan Ponthier: Before falling into the world of so-called "contemporary art music", I came from rock and oral music. For the past three years, I've been teaching composition at the CRR d'Aubervilliers la Courneuve. Transmission is an important part of my life. Over the past few years, I've been commissioned by a number of music schools, and I quickly realized that transmission and creation were deeply linked.
What do you like about composing for young, or even very young, musicians?
A.M : First and foremost, what I like is this contact, this transmission. I really enjoy it. I come from the world of conservatories, and I love the noisy atmosphere of Wednesday afternoons when children play and sing together.
J.P: I work with children of all ages. With my "minute opera Dansékinoucomposed in 2015 and commissioned by Arcal Ile-de-France, I worked with children aged 4 to 7. I don't write for children so much as with them: I involve them in all stages of creation, in workshops. Children are very discerning in their perception of a work in progress.
What do you pay attention to?
J.P: It really depends on the age. Their relationship to the world and to sounds is not the same whether they're 4 or 12.
A.M: Pieces for children necessarily have a pedagogical dimension, but they need to understand why they're singing or playing something: it mustn't be a gesture isolated from any context, purely intended for theoretical learning. In a score for children, there has to be a musical and poetic explanation, the acquisition of a gesture, a playing parameter, a technique. The composer has to start with something that speaks to them, something they can identify in their minds, to try to take them further, to open them up to a hitherto unknown world of sound, poetry and technique.
What do I need to watch out for? What are the pitfalls to avoid?
J.P : You have to be wary of the concerns you project onto children when writing a play for them. You can't say to yourself , "A kid doesn't have the capacity to hear that. You have to trust children's ears, which are undeniably less formatted than adult ears when it comes to the fundamental exploration of sound. A one-year-old who taps on a table and drives his parents mad, sculpts the sound, makes his scales. Children have a great deal of potential for creativity in sound, which can become musical (but not always!).
A.M : The trap is to simplify things beyond all reasonableness, and in so doing, to lie. When we talk to children outside music, in everyday life, we tend to simplify everything, whereas in reality, they understand much more than we think they do. There's a danger in doing something too rudimentary, too simple. But composing something disconnected from their thinking is also risky: for example, a piece based solely on the transformation of sound - what is known in contemporary music as a "logo-centric" piece - without a supporting poetic universe, would be too abstract: difficult for children to appropriate. One of my models is György Kurtág's Jatekok collection of compositions for children, which offers some very interesting approaches to sound and rhythm.
Why is it important to get young musicians to play and sing contemporary pieces?
J.P : First of all, for us composers, the freshly-composed work is not overhanging the audience for whom it is intended. I love the circuit-court dimension applied to music! We need to give young people the tools they need to be able to listen to a wider variety of music and aesthetics, without preconceptions. We need to train tomorrow's audiences from an early age. Thanks to new technologies, it has never been easier to share one's projects with an audience eager for a change of musical tune, but training and opening the ear must start early.
A.M : Pedagogical composition has been around for centuries, and has even given rise to masterpieces: Schumann, Bartók... Composing for children trains their ear, but also that of composers, who are obliged to adapt to their young performers. This helps build a foundation, even if unconscious, for later appreciation of new music. And you shouldn't always play the same thing to your pupils: nothing is set in stone, and beware of ear formatting! You have to show children that music is always being composed, that it's alive.
Interview by Suzanne Gervais
Alexandros Markeas' playlist :
Jonathan Pontier's playlist :
