Polyphonic songs, TARA mountain and a pilgrimage

In November and December 2023 I traveled to Serbia to learn traditional Serbian songs, with the support of a scholarship from the Ministry of Culture and Science NRW. I was not only interested in the music itself, but also how it reflects the relationship between people and their natural environment. I spent a total of four weeks in Belgrade, where I took singing lessons with Svetlana Spaic and Jelena Jovanovic, and two weeks in the mountains of Tara National Park to incorporate the newly acquired knowledge into my artistic practice and to deepen my own artistic dialogue with the wild. In May and June of this year, I then traveled to St Germans in Cornwall to make a pilgrimage from there to St Michaels Mount (the Cornish Celtic Way). The focus here was on the connection between the movement through the landscape (as well as the constant proximity to it) and singing. In the local culture, the pilgrimage itself describes a so-called song line.

The traditional or folk music of Northern and Eastern Europe has fascinated me for many years. A large number of the concerts that brought me closer to the traditional music of the Balkans and Scandinavia were made possible by the cultural initiative AlbaKultur, led by Birgit Ellinghaus, that invites musicians from all over the world to NRW and organizes their stays. I was also inspired by a lecture given by the vocalist Mariana Sadovska, who has been interpreting traditional Ukrainian music for many years. In her lecture she mentioned the difference between songs, particularly in terms of the way the voice is used, from densely forested areas compared to more open (agricultural) landscapes in the Ukraine. This fascinated me enormously and in the months and projects that followed the question how music, that is created in direct contact with nature can be an expression of the same as well as a reflection of the human relationship to it, accompanied. The idea grew in me to explore and understand the connection between nature and singing in closer detail, both in my artistic practice and as a musical and cultural phenomenon.

As a transdisciplinary artist, I am involved in developing lyrical, narrative and musical content in constant dialogue with nature. My work is permeated by self-experiments with/in nature, whereby I frequently encounter various limits of my own cultural upbringing. The history of various (ancient) European cultures and their relationships with nature accompany me and often represent an interesting contrast in this respect. It is an ongoing process through which I seek to artistically support an animistic view of the more than human world and reflect on and artistically process our own relationship to it. The scholarship represented a special opportunity to walk further on this path. Furthermore, it means a lot to me to keep traditional music alive by engaging with it and apprehending its songs.

During my time in Belgrade, I learned a wide variety of polyphonic songs and immersed myself in the historical and ethnomusical background of the Serbian music tradition. Since the songs require a special technique, often focused on overtones, I was also able to develop my voice significantly. My teacher Svetlana Spaic has a special background, as she began traveling through Serbia and the surrounding countries such as Bosnia and Croatia at an early age to learn and document traditional songs in the villages. Jelena Jovanovic taught me a lot about the ethnomusical background, such as the differences between the individual mountain regions and their musical traditions. She is herself a scientist at the Institute for Ethnomusicology at the University of Belgrade. My time in the Tara mountains was special in many ways. The onset of winter there was an extraordinary experience and intensified my experience of nature and the silence it presented me with. In the small hut I was also able to practice the pieces of music I had previously learned without being disturbed. At the same time, the wilderness of this area was a true gift in terms of my artistic dialogue with the landscape and the deepening and exploration of it. I was able to develop new musical, literary and visual content.

During my pilgrimage, the proximity to the ocean was exciting compared to the mountains and forests of the Tara Mountains. I realized that a direct creative dialogue with landscape and nature, including the development of concrete content, requires time and proximity to a specific place or region. Hiking, on the other hand, represents a kind of rush, even ecstasy, the experiences of which I have tried to capture in written fragments.

What still concerns me with regard to both countries is the way in which particularly traditional folk in particular was created and passed on over many centuries. Above all, the proximity to nature and the often ritualistic relationship to it are no longer present from a contemporary perspective and are therefore difficult to truly grasp or imagine. As an artist, I am interested in how I can nevertheless sing these old songs and create art myself from a place of profound relationship with nature. Ultimately, I am also interested in the actual impulses and motives for singing or composing with/in nature. In Serbia, I spent a lot of time working on my compositional processes that takes place directly in nature or in close proximity to it, and that at times describes a gesture towards my living environment itself.

I have also thought and written a lot about the wilderness, what the word actually entails, and our relationship with her. For ultimately, I wish for my art to strengthen the desire to protect her, especially ecosystems that need protection or our support and awareness in restoring them.