“Music and Introspection” is a concert and lecture series that gives a group of Swedish and international musicians and composers the opportunity to develop new knowledge and methods, reach new audiences, and find new places to perform their music. Through the project, we explore ways in which music can deepen both musicians’ and audiences’ inner lives through parallel listening and a deeper understanding of human introspection.
In the process, we draw inspiration from three historical Swedish thinkers and artists who actively explored the human inner life: Emanuel Swedenborg, Ivan Aguéli, and August Strindberg. We call them “the three guides.” Their ideas, methods, and artistic expressions serve as points of departure for our exploration of the human subconscious. We use their work to create new music while deepening and refining our own musical practices. The concerts and lectures will then take place at museums dedicated to these explorers of the human soul in Stockholm, Sala, and London.
But what does introspection actually mean? If we close our eyes and meditate, or simply close our eyes and sit still, our thoughts begin to flow. But it is not only thoughts that arise; there are also voices commenting on those thoughts. Something happens, however, when we turn our attention inward while simultaneously focusing on music. Sometimes our thoughts cease; at other times, they follow different, more unpredictable and often creative paths. Music allows us to experience our inner selves not as a fixed identity, but as a process. It gives us the capacity to understand ourselves in new ways. The project explores music’s ability to create a different kind of meditation—one in which the “self” ceases to be a noun and becomes a verb.
Throughout the process, each musician and composer will have the opportunity to develop music inspired by one of the three guides. They will reflect on what happens when we understand our inner lives as processes. One musician, for example, might be inspired by the way the dreamlike characters in Strindberg’s “A Dream Play” flow into and merge with one another, or by the way Aguéli drew on Islamic mysticism in his attempt to understand human identity, or by Swedenborg’s theories of correspondences, through which the spiritual and the material worlds are connected.
How can music function as a tool for understanding human psychology, inner conflicts, and spiritual pain? Each musician is given complete freedom to create music in their own way. The focus in the project is on contemporary electronic and electro-acoustic music.
The goal is to present concerts and lectures at the Strindberg Museum in Stockholm, The Aguéli Museum in Sala and The Swedenborg House in London. In connection with the concerts at Swedenborg House in London.
More details and names of participating musicians will appear here soon.