Knowledge Exchange Violin: A Performer’s Odyssey

Performance-Demonstration

Michael Alec Rose, director

October 21st, 2024 @ 7:30pm

Turner Hall, Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN

Peter Sheppard Skærved’s ‘Knowledge Exchange Violin’ project brings together historic instruments, composers, nature , painting, ecologists, architecture, and much more. Over the past  two years, he has collaborated with institutions including the Library of Congress, the Ashmolean Museum Oxford, the Pharos Trust Cyprus,  Lund University, Sweden, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Metropolitan Museum, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Zagreb Museum of Arts and Crafts, the Newark Violin Making School and the National Gallery of Art Washington DC, on an exploration of how the making of music illuminates and is illuminated by its place in the world. 

How are the seasons reflected in the construction of the violin? How can a Bosch painting teach us about who we are today? How does our present speak to the past? These are just some of ideas Peter has been exploring in a series of live events, films, podcasts, premieres, and interventions on both sides of the Atlantic. 

The project brings together musics from the 16th century to our own time, and the Blair School’s very own Michael Alec Rose has been an inspired collaborator on the journey, writing works which breathe new life into very old instruments, explored the resonances of ancient spaces and landscapes.

Come along to get a taste of this adventure, in music old and new, stories ‘from the road’ and the transformations that take place when we dig deeper, listen harder, and take time to allow places, things and people, to tell their stories. 

 

Knowledge Exchange Violin is supported by Research England and the Royal Academy of Music, London