The New Symposium
One-Year Online Residencies
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GROUPS
SATURDAY I.: 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM CET/CEST
Coordinator: Urban Megušar
This group is oriented toward discussion and theoretical exploration within the New Symposium program. Participants are composers with established portfolios and professional performers with established artistic trajectories, contributing research cases that are already developed or beginning to take shape as long-term projects. They share essays, references, and composition drafts, while also presenting and reflecting on their individual practices. Discussions move fluidly between texts and participants’ current work, emphasizing exchange, feedback, and collaborative inquiry. Sound, composition, and performance remain central and ongoing points of exploration.
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SATURDAY II.: 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM CET/CEST
Coordinator: Brina Kren
This group brings together practitioners from a diverse range of disciplines. It is united not only by a shared pursuit of artistic development, but also by an interest in developing the theoretical apparatus necessary for sustained reflection, individual and collective understanding of artistic practice, and meaningful discussion.
Within the group, practice is understood as the foundation for discussion. Participants regularly present their work and share the questions, achievements, and challenges that emerge from it. These presentations provide an opportunity for participants to place both their practice and their understanding of it before their peers for critical consideration. A willingness to have one’s habits, assumptions, and views questioned and challenged lies at the core of the group’s ethos.
The group’s ongoing objective is to establish and nurture sustained, long-term artistic and intellectual exchange within a tight-knit group of individuals deeply familiar with one another’s practices, as well as to assist each participant in translating the insights gained through this exchange into their everyday practice.
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FRIDAY I.: 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM CET/CEST
Coordinator: Niki Zohdi
This New Symposium group, led by Dr Niki Zohdi on Friday afternoons, welcomes practitioners working across all areas of contemporary music, with a particular focus on composers, performers, and sound artists. These sessions are discussion-led, centred on conversation, debate, and the sharing of our own approaches to practice and practice-led research. Together, we aim to develop and advance our professional work as practitioners.
Each session builds on the last, creating an organic sense of continuity that reflects the interests and needs of the group. Sessions will typically include either a critical listening discussion, focusing on recently released albums spanning a diverse range of contemporary music, or a roundtable discussion/debate based on a short text, review, or broader theme, exploring ideas that resonate across participants' practices. All materials will be shared well in advance.
Participants will also have the opportunity to lead a session in a format of their choosing, providing valuable experience in curation, facilitation, and collaboration with like-minded practitioners. Finally, we will work together as a group of composers, performers, and sound artists towards a collaborative project in preparation for the next Bled Contemporary Music Week.
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SUNDAY I.: 12.00 PM - 1.30 PM CET/CEST
Coordinator: Gašper Livk
The Sunday group led by Gašper Livk welcomes practitioners from both musical and non-musical disciplines. It primarily observes existing participants’ cases (study and professional portfolio compositions and/or performances) and extracts valuable insights from other participants through discussion. By addressing the given as is, it creates an honest and direct discussion environment, giving equal position to each participant. It bridges opposites by paraphrasing individual language into universally understandable terms. It is efficient at recognising hidden but valuable cases and anchors every composition and performance case in the context of its purpose and relation to humanity. The group is resolutely oriented towards concrete steps, tangible results, and professional portfolios.
CONCEPTUAL ARCHITECTURE
THE METHODOLOGICAL CYCLE
WHAT SUSTAINED PARTICIPATION CAN AFFORD
THE POTENTIAL OF POSSIBILITY
DATES
COORDINATORS
GROUPS
APPLICATION FORMS AND
PARTICIPATION FEES
The New Symposium program is produced by .abeceda Institute
.abeceda [Institute for Research in Art, Critical Thought and Philosophy], a public-benefit NGO and non-profit organisation dedicated to advancing contemporary artistic practices and critical inquiry. Through its innovative programmes, .abeceda has gained international recognition as one of the leading platforms for contemporary music and artistic research in the Adriatic region and across Europe: www.abeceda.io