Another Timbre TimHarrisonbre
Interview with Ferdinand Schwarz
I'd never heard of you or AREPO when you sent in Listening Time, so firstly, could you tell us about your background and how you came to experimental music?
Music played a role throughout much of my childhood; I recall us singing for hours on end on family-trips in the car. At the age of seven I picked up the trumpet. Later, I studied jazz in Cologne and got more deeply into improvised and experimental music. But my interest in experimental composition really just took off during the pandemic.
With the newly found time that the lockdowns gave me, I went from one online rabbit hole to the next, delving into the work of artists who spoke about why they do what they do. Political, concrete or abstract, fundamental or elusive, their efforts to put words to the why question of art resonated with me.
I got obsessed with the music of John Cage, Éliane Radigue and Morton Feldman, but also Jon Gibson and Arthur Russell. I had always been drawn to music that allowed me to dissolve in it, whether listening or playing. I think this is what I am still looking for in music; a sort of creative perceiving, as a tool to grow, transcend, to lose ego – and this outside of common categories of purpose or profit. I became more specifically fascinated with the act of listening and its creative potential during my free master studies in Oslo, and engaged more with sound art, instrument building, intonation systems, and listening-based music territories.
You were keen for AREPO (the ensemble who play Listening Time) to be co-credited as composers of the piece. Could you explain how the ensemble operated in the production of the music, and also tell us a bit about the ensemble's background?
AREPO and I first crossed paths while studying together in Oslo, where we had already collaborated in various constellations, including performing some of my improvisatory pieces. When they invited me to compose for them, I was thrilled—this ensemble brings an unparalleled dedication to the music they create. The group officially formed during the development of a performative work, a process that solidified our shared artistic values. Reflecting on their origins, they explain: “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.”
While I was thinking about the piece for AREPO, I went on a residency with improvisors Jonas Gerigk and Etienne Nillesen in a small village in eastern Germany. During this stay, we worked with improvised reductionist forms, which came to be fundamental for the conception of Listening, Fractions, Time.
I had been working a lot with forms that touch upon senses of stasis. I was intrigued by 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. I loved the listening/playing experiences these forms offered. Fragile by nature, these structures need a lot of care and quick decision-making to be held afloat, with soft hands. And improvising this is quite challenging.
Thus, 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. I had clear ideas of the material, which I think we all had: unforced, direct, plain.
So 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. After a few of those sessions the material we had became so clear (and time so scarce), that I just finished the other half of the piece, filling in material, composing alone what we had figured out together.
Do AREPO have similar relationships with other composers, or is your collaboration the first?
This is more a question for AREPO than me, so I passed the question on to them, and they sent this response:
AREPO approaches every project with a genuine commitment to collaboration and process. Whether we’re diving into improvisation or working on a commissioned piece, it’s always about exploring together and seeing where the music takes us. From the start, we’ve been guided by values like community, individuality, and a sense of equality—things that have naturally shaped how we work and connect with others.
Our work with Ferdinand Schwarz stands out as a particularly meaningful partnership. What made this collaboration unique wasn’t just the collective connection we built as an ensemble, but the individual relationships each of us developed with Ferdinand. These personal connections created a foundation of trust and understanding that shaped the creative process in profound ways.
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. While AREPO strives to cultivate this kind of relationship with everyone we work with, the depth of trust and creative synergy we experienced with Ferdinand has set a high standard for what collaboration can be. It allowed us to engage with the music in a way that felt organic and deeply personal, letting the composition emerge as something greater than the sum of its parts. This process underscored what we hold most dear: the belief that collaboration isn’t just about creating together but about truly listening—to one another, to the music, and to the spaces we inhabit.
Has the recorded version of Listening Time been played live yet? And if so, what kind of response did you get?
The 45 minutes of Listening Time are not always easy to fit into a program with various pieces, so we didn’t have the chance to perform the piece in its entirety yet. However, we will present it as a standalone piece in a concert in Oslo in March 2025. We care a lot about the context in which this long-form music will be presented, so we’re making sure that the space invites for a continuous deep listening experience with respective floor seating and light.
Do you have other projects planned? And will you be working with AREPO again, or will you be working with other ensembles?
At the moment, I am working on some projects that evolve more around instrument building and sound installation-performance. I am continuing my research on the physical and psychoacoustic properties of wave interference as I did in my master thesis. This is a fascinating field, as this phenomenon aptly showcases the wondrous creative potential in our individual listening. Specifically, the spatial and phenomenological aspect interests me here.
One project stemming from this occupation is the release of my debut solo album Views of a Sculpture on Superpang this year which features an installation of automated, spatialised, and fine-tuned melodicas. This record approaches harmonic space through spatial recording technique and further explores listening in a seemingly static form.
I am currently also collaborating with other artists: I’m particularly excited about experimentations I do together with composer and kacapi-player Kristofer Svensson, working on improvisatory just intonation music. And besides that, new compositions for solo percussion and solo koto (the Japanese string instrument, or zither) are scheduled in 2025. I still host my communal monthly listening session Sounding Listening in Oslo and am writing music for my large ensemble Gradient. As for AREPO, I am sure we will continue working together in the future, if not creating a new piece, then surely performing together in varying constellations.
at238 Ferdinand Schwarz ‘Listening Time’
with AREPO ensemble
A 45-minute work from 2024, developed in collaboration with AREPO: “We filled up the form with content together, bit by bit, testing harmonies and registers....To me it is still connected to improvisation, but improvisation which has been petrified in time.”
Madara Eleonora Mežale, clarinet Marco Slaviero, electric guitar
Ferdinand Schwarz
(Photo by Henk Szanto)
AREPO ensemble