INTERNATIONAL OPEN CALL
FOR COMPOSERS UNDER 35 WITH DISABILITIES
or ARTISTIC TEAM OF COMPOSERS UNDER 35, INCLUDING PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES
PASS – Promoting Accessible Shows combining music and performing arts for people with sensory and cognitive disabilities
PROJECT SUMMARY
“Let’s PASS” is a call to action, a call for a change of perspective, a counter-narrative of disabilities in the performing arts. PASS – Promoting Accessible Shows is an international project, co-funded by the Creative Europe Program of the European Union, addressing the problem of lack of engagement and visibility for artists and audiences with cognitive and sensory disabilities in live performances and performing arts. The project is coordinated by Fondazione Arturo Toscanini (Italy) with ACCAC (Finland), En Dynamei (Greece) and Studio Citadela (Czech Republic).
We are all unique individuals with different physical characteristics, personalities, backgrounds, beliefs, sexual orientations, and abilities. However, we are also similar because we all have a genetic code, place of birth, and individual talents and preferences. Each of us has their own identity, which makes us stand out from others. It is the diversity among us that makes us equal and special as individuals and also allows us to work together effectively as a group.
In the PASS project, we see diversity as a value, an opportunity for growth for the individual and the community. We want to think about a new way of performing arts where everyone can feel like leading players: all artists should be able to express their art without blocks or barriers and everyone should be able to access live performances.
Partners will create a European highly accessible and multidisciplinary pilot performance using assistive technologies and combining music, theater, dance and visual arts involving artists with disabilities in the creative process. The project will start with an analysis and mapping of needs and good practices in tables with representatives of institutions, schools and associations to draw up guidelines for the creation of accessible performances. Partners will develop a co-creation process with disabled artists and primary school pupils to create a pilot performance with technologies and integrated artistic languages. The process includes experimental workshops with schools, artistic residencies and staff trainings on accessibility requirements. The show will make its debut in Italy in March 2025 and will tour in all partner countries. The main output will be a reference model of a multidisciplinary accessible performance with an inclusive multimedia programme and guidelines for the creation of highly accessible performances.
PROJECTS & CALL OBJECTIVES
The PASS project is based on aims in line with the Sustainable Development Goals outlined in the UN 2030 Agenda. In particular, due to its educational nature and the main target group (children between 6 and 10 years old), the project aims at pursuing Goal n.4: “Ensure inclusive and equal quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. Using the arts to work on inclusion and the reduction of physical, cognitive and sensory barriers in the processes of live performance production and enjoyment is the main goal the project aims at, together with the participation and enhancement of artists with disabilities. Other objectives:
- Developing the capacity of performing arts’ operators in to create accessible artistic contents;
- Creating permanent multi-stakeholder confrontation on accessibility in arts;
- Increasing acknowledgement and mobility of performances with artists with disabilities in Europe;
- Enlarging the audience with a focus on children with sensory and cognitive disabilities.
SUBJECT OF THE CALL
This call is published for the selection of a composer under 35 with disabilities or a group of composers under 35 including persons with disabilities to be included in the artistic team of the PASS Project.
As the European Disability Forum points out in its latest report on human rights, the picture of the right to work of persons with disabilities in Europe is rather discouraging. These data confirm that the condition of disability continues to be particularly exclusionary in the world of work. This condition is even more prejudicial if we also consider the gender difference.
In this context and with reference to the main objectives on which the project’s European network is based, the main objectives of the call are:
- Contribute to the development and artistic appreciation of artists with disabilities;
- Revolutionise the range of performing arts programming through the presentation of world-class works with a disability as their theme;
- To increase interest in disability issues also in the performing arts sector;
- To create the best possible conditions for finding, developing, producing and presenting the work of artists with disabilities.
The call aims to create an opportunity of growth, comparison and professional employment to enhance the artistic talent of emerging composers with disabilities.
The intention, through this call, is to select an artist or an artistic collective to be entrusted with the commission of one or two original pieces for symphonic orchestra (to be arranged also for chamber ensemble – instrumentation to be defined), which take into account the presence of the Sign Language in choreographic form during the musical performance and, therefore, is able to integrate and harmonise it.
The pieces – that can be realized or developed also during the artistic residencies envisaged by the project in traditional and/or digital form – must be unpublished.
The reference theme is the celebration of life and the joy of living.
The composer or artistic team identified through this call may also be asked to arrange pieces/excerpts from the symphonic or traditional/folk repertoire. An artistic residency in Thessaloniki during August 2024 may also be envisaged for the composer or a part of the artistic team identified by the call.
REQUIREMENTS
The call is reserved for composers under 35 years old of any gender and nationality, with disabilities of any kind.
Composers under 35 with disabilities of any kind who are included in artistic groups, also informally formed, may participate in the call.
The PASS project aims to promote a radical idea of inclusion and intends to take into account the extent to which the condition of disability is closely related to culture and context: this is why composers who define themselves as disabled may also participate in the call.
Possession of an academic degree in the field of music and professional experience in the music sector is not compulsory but will be a preferential requirement.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
Participation in the call is free of charge and implies acceptance of this call in its entirety.
Applications must be received by 20 June 2024 exclusively online in two different ways:
- Using the application form: bit.ly/letspass_application-form
- Writing to the email: info@letspass.eu
Each applicant, as an individual composer or as contact person for the composers’ group, must send the following documentation by the online form or by the email:
- Mandatory: copy of a valid identity document;
- Mandatory: educational and professional curriculum vitae;
- Mandatory: one or two already realised musical compositions, available in pdf format with related audio file;
- Optional: any link to an artistic portfolio in digital version that allows the artistic quality of already realised musical compositions to be assessed.
In order to ensure the best conditions for accessibility and inclusion, applicants are invited to indicate their specific needs* in the application form and can send their application by the best method for each one, following the instructions in the online application or writing by email.
*For example: Do you need wheelchair access? Do you have a medical condition we should keep in mind? Do you require assistance with certain types of tasks or intend to take part with an assistant? Do you need a translation?
EVALUATION
The evaluation committee, composed of representatives of the 4 project partner institutions – Fondazione Arturo Toscanini (Italy) with ACCAC (Finland), En Dynamei (Greece), Studio Citadela (Czech Republic) – will select at its sole discretion the composer under 35 with disabilities or the artistic collective within which there is at least one artist under 35 with disabilities, assessing their artistic-professional profile and the musical works they have already produced.
Applicants who pass the selection on the basis of the submitted documentation will be called for an interview (online) with the evaluation committee to assess their motivation to participate in the PASS project and their readiness to interact with the various arts and project actors.
The outcome of the call will be communicated to candidates by 10 July 2024 by e-mail and by publication of the ranking list on the PASS Project website: www.letspass.eu
Should the selected artist(s) renounce the assignment, the ranking list shall be short-listed.
The commission reserves the right not to select any composer/composer if there are no candidates meeting the requirements and/or works whose artistic-musical quality is judged insufficient in its sole discretion.
COMPOSITION TASK
The selected composer or composers team will be formally entrusted with the composition of not more than 2 original musical pieces, to be performed during the year 2025, with an expected remuneration of € 1.500,00 (gross and all-inclusive of any fees and expenses). The specific characteristics of the musical compositions to be realised and the precise timetable will be communicated directly to the person or artistic team of reference who will be awarded the call, who will be asked to undertake to respect the project timetable and objectives.
The composer or artistic team identified through this call may also be asked to arrange pieces from the symphonic or traditional/folk repertoire.
The composer and the members of the artistic team identified must also be willing to work with electronic music if necessary, incorporating sound effects in interaction with classical music.
The selected artist shall transfer exclusively to the project partner organisations all rights of use of the musical compositions/arrangements that are the subject of the assignment. The rights to the works will in any case remain the property of the selected artist or artistic collective.
INFORMATION AND CONTACT
Websites:
FONDAZIONE ARTURO TOSCANINI
ACCAC FINLAND
EN DYNAMEI
STUDIO CITADELA
E-mail:
info@letspass.eu