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Workshops
"Bild und Klang"
My first contact to modern music was in 1993 when I read the words "painting to modern music" in an adult-education program. Wolfgang Seierl offered a weekend painting course where one could, without previous experience, paint to modern music. My curiosity was so great that I signed up.
The first brush strokes were to the music of Morton Feldman, Luigi Nono and John Cage. The result was exciting and encouraging. My exhilaration grew. Soon after, I embarked upon an extensive education in painting, and began holding house-concerts where a diverse range of people were able to experience modern music in a familiar environment. I also started working in my own studio.
Our listening habits are well-worn. Popular and classical music are very familiar to us. Without question, listening to this music is a pleasure. However, modern music makes my fingers move, search for form, and seek to transfer rhythms, patterns of sound, associations, moods, and timbre onto paper. For me, modern music requires a readiness to be inspired and to allow one's own reflections to become manifest. A joy, an exhilaration blossoms. Composers are often present at the rehearsals and concerts. They talk about their music, their pictures, and their associations. Composers write music about today's society, about our lives. They make our lives, paths in life, and daily routines audible - each in an individual manner, in their own personal style.
That is what makes drawing and painting to this music so exciting. I wish to introduce children to this music in order to make them comfortable with it. Children have an openness to listening to music, a joy and excitement in transforming these audible tones. If children are made familiar with this music, if they grow up with it, then they become the next audience of modern music!
Klaus Ager: “Intermezzi” 1999