Black Box Music

Simon Steen-Andersen (b.1976) is a Berlin-based composer, performer and installation artist, working in the field between instrumental music, electronics, video and performance within settings ranging from symphony orchestra and chamber music (with and without multimedia) to stagings, solo performances and installations. His audio-visual work Black Box Music is a surprising, energetic, noisy and yet profoundly entertaining deconstruction of traditional musical drama. The starting point is the classical setting of a conductor in front of an orchestra - but quickly the scenery explodes in musical and choreographic energy ad absurdum, bending the conductor's role through puppet theatre, hand choreography and eventually a musical performance involving tuning forks, finger snaps, rubber bands and the construction of a musical machine within the black box. The DVD also includes Steen-Andersen's signature work Run Time Error, filmed at the Royal Library in Copenhagen, as well as a short documentary and thus offers a fascinating meeting with one of Nordic Music's most visionary voices today.