Ferdinand Schwarz, AREPO

Ferdinand Schwarz studied jazz trumpet in Cologne before his compositional interests took off during the pandemic, when he became "obsessed with the music of John Cage, Éliane Radigue and Morton Feldman, but also Jon Gibson and Arthur Russell." He was drawn to "music that allowed me to dissolve in it, whether listening or playing... a sort of creative perceiving, as a tool to grow, transcend, to lose ego." During his free master studies in Oslo, he became "more specifically fascinated with the act of listening and its creative potential," engaging with sound art, instrument building, intonation systems, and listening-based music territories.

Listening Time is a 45-minute work developed collaboratively with AREPO - Madara Eleonora Mežale (clarinet), Marco Slaviero (electric guitar), Noël Rubli (accordion), and Elizabeth Kate (cello). The ensemble formed in Oslo around shared artistic values: "What began as a whim evolved into a deeply connected musical relationship, transcending our instruments. This process prioritised human connection over instrumentalism, embedding core values of community, individuality, and a rejection of hierarchy at the heart of our practice."

The piece emerged from Schwarz's interest in "non-developmental music, where to me sound is not used to narrate the story itself, but is the structure of the plot on which listeners build their own narratives." During a residency with improvisers Jonas Gerigk and Etienne Nillesen in eastern Germany, working with reductionist forms, Schwarz conceived the approach: "I decided to write the form (structure of the plot) for AREPO first and then fill it with material together afterwards. To me it is still connected to improvisation, but improvisation which has been petrified in time."

The collaborative process involved filling the structure together: "We filled up the form with content together, bit by bit, testing harmonies and registers. I guided the just intonation framework that the piece uses, but many ideas came from the ensemble and our shared process." AREPO reflects: "When Ferdinand presented the concept for Listening Time, it felt less like the start of a new piece and more like the natural evolution of an ongoing dialogue."

Schwarz's recent work includes Views of a Sculpture on Superpang, featuring an installation of automated, spatialised melodicas exploring "the physical and psychoacoustic properties of wave interference." He hosts the monthly listening session Sounding Listening in Oslo and collaborates with composer and kacapi-player Kristofer Svensson on improvisatory just intonation music.