Morzaika

What does the sea dream of? Can the sea sing? Could the peb­bles washed ashore be the Alpha­bet of the Sea? Or are they sim­ply an ordi­nary sea-mosa­ic? The Novem­ber ĄsąBąble lead us to Buenos Aires, city of favourable winds. We will hear its whis­tles and rus­tles, and clap out the colour­ful rhythms that have sailed here from dif­fer­ent cor­ners of the world.

We will keep close to the har­bour, for it was near there, in the San Tel­mo dis­trict, that the most famous milon­gas took place; there we will meet the lit­tle fish­er-girl from Gabriela Mis­tral’s poem, and there a piece called “Tales of an Old Piano” — recent­ly writ­ten by Aitana Kasulin — leads us. The pro­gramme is round­ed out by works from oth­er out­stand­ing Argen­tine com­posers: Alber­to Ginastera and Astor Piaz­zol­la. Along the way we will find peb­bles washed ashore, which when coloured with felt-tip pens will form a resound­ing sea-mosaic.

Performers:

• Anna Kar­pow­icz — flute
• Krzysztof Kozłows­ki — piano
• Anna Sza­w­iel — actress

Before and after the con­certs, par­ents and car­ers are wel­come to bring chil­dren to enjoy treats at our café

About the series:
ĄsąBąble are per­for­ma­tive con­certs of new music for fam­i­lies with chil­dren aged 0–7. Each event is built around an orig­i­nal script in which lis­ten­ing to music, inter­ac­tive games and edu­ca­tion­al val­ue are equal­ly impor­tant. In a space wel­com­ing to the very youngest, audi­ences can hear music by lead­ing con­tem­po­rary com­posers, adapt­ed in pro­por­tion and pre­sen­ta­tion for small ears. The the­atri­cal for­mat of the con­certs encour­ages con­cen­tra­tion and allows chil­dren to become enchant­ed by sound, while invi­ta­tions to join impro­vised activ­i­ties release the nat­ur­al need for expres­sion in young peo­ple. In the spir­it of Janusz Kor­cza­k’s words “There are no chil­dren, there are peo­ple”, all par­tic­i­pants are treat­ed with respect and have their part in the unfold­ing of each event. The series presents exclu­sive­ly 20th- and 21st-cen­tu­ry music. A reg­u­lar ele­ment is the pre­sen­ta­tion of a record­ing of a sym­phon­ic work or a piece from the sound design and elec­tron­ics tradition.

Although each edi­tion of ĄsąBąble takes musi­cal tex­ture as its start­ing point, it is also rich in non-musi­cal con­texts close to Hash­tag Ensem­ble’s prac­tice: lit­er­ary, visu­al, social. The events are inter­dis­ci­pli­nary in nature: invit­ed artists who have long worked in prox­im­i­ty to the child’s imag­i­na­tion — dancers, per­form­ers, illus­tra­tors and writ­ers — also take part. The­atre is a nat­ur­al field of action for new music, and so the edu­ca­tion­al char­ac­ter of ĄsąBąble also includes actor train­ing for the musicians.

The cura­tor and host of the series is Anna Sza­w­iel — actress and voice artist who spe­cialis­es in inter­dis­ci­pli­nary cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al events. She likes to work at bor­ders: between con­cert and per­for­mance, edu­ca­tion and play, phys­i­cal­i­ty and abstrac­tion — always in con­nec­tion with the child’s imag­i­na­tion. The con­cert pro­grammes are co-cre­at­ed by musi­cians of Hash­tag Ensemble.

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The ĄsąBąble project cre­ative­ly devel­ops the con­cept of the “Smykow­iz­je” series run by the foun­da­tion “Muzy­ka jest dla wszys­t­kich”, in the frame­work of which between 2016 and 2022 Hash­tag Ensem­ble and Anna Sza­w­iel togeth­er gave over 130 con­certs and mini-per­for­mances, seek­ing the most com­pelling forms for pre­sent­ing new music. The con­cept and cura­tion of Smykow­iz­je were by Anna Kierkosz. It was the first series of events in Poland addressed to the very youngest, in which con­tem­po­rary music played the lead role.