Schools
Since its beginnings the Ensemble Modern has always emphasised the importance of communication and teaching in its work. As early as 1988, the Ensemble participated in a Berlin Response project in cooperation with the London Sinfonietta and the British Council. Various other projects at a number of schools in Frankfurt followed.
Response is an attempt to enable young people to experience New Music and in doing so to give them a better understanding of the compositional concepts and developments. Musicians from the Ensemble Modern and renowned composers bring works of New Music closer to pupils and also help pupils to develop their own compositions. These works are then performed at attractive venues. The aim is to show that children of all ages can be musically creative, even if they have no or only minimal experience with instruments - the concept of the human being as an instrument serves as a background here. The pedagogical thought underlying this concept is that people themselves are instruments with a considerable range of instrumentation techniques at their disposal such as stamping, clicking fingers, humming, clapping, shouting, whistling, screaming, crying. Together, these sounds produce an incredible effect and prove that the music of the body and the heart can express amazing things.
