Musicville is a project between Slovenia, Croatia and Austria running from 2023 until end of 2024  that aims to transform the classical European musical form of Opera into a new, innovative, and creative collaboration inspired by environmental awareness, nature, local crafts, and traditions. At the heart of the project are sustainable, participatory and interdisciplinary artistic practices with the aim  of activating different communities and audiences.

IT STRIVES TO ANSWER THE QUESTIONS:

How can resources and knowledge from the field of art and sustainability be combined? How can  contemporary cultural production be presented in rural areas? How can artists be helped to create  new business opportunities while protecting the environment?

It provides a framework for connecting an international group of artists of different disciplines  (music, theatre, architecture, visual arts, design, performance…) to work together with the local  expert communities (agriculture, arts & crafts), environmental professionals, and cultural, and  scientific experts.

The idea behind the project is to improve the resilience and well-being of artists by learning new skills in a practical and peerto-peer approach, enabling artists to collaborate with young and experienced  professionals from a variety of artistic and non-artistic backgrounds to create new and unexpected  venues for contemporary music production and presentation.

More then 40 international artists applied and the jury had a really hard job selecting a group of 15 to be part of the story. The selected artists are:

Slovenia

• Ana Pečar – visual artist, video, installations
• Alja Petric – vocal, atmospheric soundscapes (gongs, bowls..)
• Sara Korošec – vocal, soundscapes, electronic music
• Staša Prah – story, dramaturgy
• Bharath Ranganathan – traditional Indian instruments, musicology

Austria

• Julia Bugram – interdisciplinary artist (graphics, installation, and objects)
• Francesca Aldegani – visual artist
• Camilo Andres Latorre Contreras – composer, writer
• Aaron Koop – graphic designer, restaurateur, set design
• Gregor Piskernik – visionary dancer, performance maker

Croatia

• Anja Makdić Japundžić – theatre director
• Josipa Slaviček – architecture
• Marta Dolenčić – set design, printmaking, puppets
• Rajnard Hraščanec – opera singer, musician
• Manuela Pauk – sculpturer

1. STUDY VISITS

September & October 2023 Selected participants will participate in the 3-day study visits to three  countries (Slovenia, Austria, Croatia). The study visits will thematically follow the concept of the  project, focusing on land art, site-specific installations, research approaches and interdisciplinarity.  Their main objective is to determine the sites of artistic research and final performances.

2. ONLINE WORK

November 2023 – June 2024 Considering the international aspect of the project, participants will work together with  their mentors in a series of online lectures, workshops and meetings, in order to develop the concept  for the final production.

3. ART RESIDENCIES AND FINAL PRESENTATIONS

August, September, October 2024 Musicville’s residency program brings participants and their  mentors together in three rural locations in Slovenia, Austria and Croatia. Lasting up to 10 days per  location depending on the specific tasks, they serve as an exchange of ideas, experiences and artistic  expressions of the participants, merging them into a coherent whole. The residency program  culminates in the final performance of one act of the opera in each country.

Six renowed online lectures open to the general public.

Lectures from spheres closely related to the idea of Musicville:

• → Sound and Environment
• → Community and Audience
• → Rethinking Opera

12.09.2023, 18:00 | 2nd MUSICVILLE LECTURE

Jay Springett – https://www.thejaymo.net/
Topic: Art and Sustainability; the Solarpunk Movement
Jay Springett is a consultant strategist and writer from London, UK. He works with individuals and organizations to create cohesive worlds. Hybrid environments that create a culture via the interaction of people, place, and technologies. He is recognised as an articulate voice in the emerging speculative genre of Solarpunk. A movement that seeks to answer and embody the question  “what does a sustainable  civilisation look like, and how can we get there?”  He has described Solarpunk as a  memetic engine  – a tool to power the ‘refuturing’ of our collective imagination. His Solarpunk short story  ‘In The Storm, A  Fire’  was long listed for the  BSFA Award for Short Fiction  and Chanticleer International Book Awards  Short Story Award Semifinalist.

• →online meeting with Jay Springett 12.September.2023 at 18h (CET)
• →outcome: 1h – 1.30h lecture on the topic of Solarpunk with a Q&A segment