Title of lecture: Bridging the aesthetic gap between performers and composers – An experimental, student-centred curricular innovation and arts-based research project This is a part of Beers' original practice-based research, combining curricular innovations and pedagogical work with creative art making. Location/Date: University of Surrey, Guildford, UK – 4-6 July 2024 Event: The Second Biennial International Conference of Music and the University Link to conference: https://musicandtheuniversity.wordpress.com/ Link to speaker website: https://www.jeanbeers.com/ Abstract of the lecture: In artistic collaboration, there often are seemingly insurmountable gaps between the expectations or mind sets of composers and performers per se. Composers tend to focus on innovation in sound or timbre and notation; performers may be more concerned with nuances of sound, touch, phrasing, interpretation and how to best combine and integrate new repertoire within their concert presentations. Creating a “safe space” for young artists to collaborate and create a work together over the course of several months has already become an integral and highly valued innovation in the university’s curriculum (MUK, Vienna). It has attracted international interest and led to a cooperation with a US university’s piano and composition departments in order to collaboratively develop revised curricula. My initiative Composer/Performer Relations is a student-centred seminar in the format of an artistic laboratory, that supports regular student work (rehearsals, conversations, score writing) with feedback in workshops, group discussions and one-to-ones, culminating in an artistic dissemination with concerts and presentations. Another practice-based research project with the same aim grew out of the curriculum innovation as one of the first experiment sets that took place within the seminar with a highly accomplished former Masters student, now Alumna, and will be presented alongside the curriculum information as a means of exemplifying the real world implications in the career development for young musicians, explicating information verbally, visually and with musical examples (score, recordings). The joint composition NüShu – Musings By Two Women (Yilin Han/Jean Beers, 2023-24) has gained considerable interest in the accordion world, being included in the opening ceremony concert of one of the main international accordion competitions as well as leading to further career opportunities for both accordionist and composer. Jean Beers, Vienna, 15th January 2024 Artist website for accordionist Yilin Han (case study 2): https://www.youtube.com/@yilinhanacc2510

Nü Shu Suite – Collaborative composition by composer Jean Beers and accordionist Yilin Han (an artistic research project, 2022-2024) // Information: Title: Nü Shu - Suite für Akkordeon Solo mit Zuspielung und Performance Movements: 1. Musings (by Two Women) 2. Blood 3. Push(back) 4. Nü - the woman Movements 1, 2, 4 with electronic tape Composed: Vienna, 2022-2024 Premieres: Vienna, January 2023 (1st movement "Musings by two women"); Beijing, May 2024 (complete) Composers: Jean Beers (idea, concept, composition), Yilin Han (concept, composition, accordion technique) // Background & Concept: "Nü Shu" is a special language that was developed in the 18th century by oppressed women in Hunan, China, not only to communicate secretly amongst women, but also to express themselves in a socially critical and poetic way. The written characters are based on the soft forms of the female body and are only understood by a few experts and women today. The research by Jean Beers and Yilin Han resulted in the artistic-scientific transcription of excerpts from old recordings of "Nü Shu" lament songs, which were further developed as the melodic and harmonic basis of the entire musical structure of this Suite. In order to give artistic expression to the immense sadness about the worldwide historical (and in some cases still ongoing) disregard for women in society, a famous excerpt from the novel Bonjour tristesse by 20th century French feminist Francoise Sagan was read by Yilin Han in German and Chinese translation and electronically alienated by Jean Beers and combined with the breath of the accordion (air sounds of the bellows). In contrast to this, the two co-composers developed a theatrical dramaturgy that transcends an instrumental performance and expresses the immense mental strength of the "Nü Shu" women and all oppressed or disadvantaged people through strong symbolism, gestures and grave bass sounds in the accordion. This work was created in a very unusual and highly empathic way. Nü Shu Suite is a collaborative composition in which the composer Jean Beers has placed her creative ideas and compositional drafts so much into Fluxus that she has gone through all the creative processes of the composition together with the accordionist Yilin Han. In a conventional composition, the creative process largely takes place before the interpretation on the instrument, so strictly speaking the composer would place herself hierarchically above the performer in the decision-making power of the content of the new work. Jean Beers and Yilin Han, on the other hand, met at eye level right at the beginning of the embryonic creation process and thus formed a dual creative force consisting of two women. The two women researched sounds from the button accordion together and agreed on a philosophical-narrative concept, inspired by the life and work of one of Europe's original feminists, Francoise Sagan, and the "Nü Shu" language of a secret women's association in China. This work was created as part of the artistic research project Composer/Performer Relations by Jean Beers, in which Yilin Han participated as part of her master's degree with a focus on her own accordion project.

Experiments (during COVID pandemic) with antagonistic aesthetic concept by a classical pianist and a contemporary dancer, using empathy as a means of communication through improvisation. Jean Beers – piano Ingo Reulecke – dance Berlin, 2020 at the Ernst Busch Academy of Acting and Dance

Live performance in Berlin last summer (2019) with the amazing dancer-choreographer (Tanzmacher) Ingo Reulecke (Professor of choreography at Ernst Busch Akademie Berlin). Check out Ingo's website: www.ingoreulecke.com What a joy this Duo project was! Post-corona – watch out world, we will return in the arts with panache and passion!

Ensemble Improvisation Experimentell, Leitung: Jean Beers International Scholars’ Study Sessions: Wiener Perspektiven ― Kunst, urbaner Raum und soziale Un-/Gleichheit im Rahmen der Reihe Groove The City ― Urban Music Studies and Digital Humanities Konzept und Organisation: Susana Zapke https://muk.ac.at/veranstaltung/international-study-sessions-wiener-perspektiven-01.html

Abschlusskonzert der Langen Nacht der Forschung an der MUK https://muk.ac.at/veranstaltung/lange-nacht-der-forschung-2022.html Diese Station der Langen Nacht der Forschung an der MUK ist zugleich eine publikumsinteraktive “Mitmachstation” wie ein künstlerisch-wissenschaftliches Experiment und - nicht zuletzt - eine Performance, also eine künstlerische Präsentation. Das Ziel ist, Empathie in kollaborativer Improvisation durch kommunikative Improvisationstechniken mit der Suche nach Sinn durch gemeinsame Präsenz zu erproben. Mit Univ.-Prof.in Dr.in Jean Beers und Studierenden der MUK Ensemble MUK.improvisation.experimentell: Piotr Motyka, Kejia Xing, Yilin Han, Tilen Zlatnar, Yueqi Zhang, Eni Maqellari, Elisabeth Müller, Kim Brunner, Valeriia Dolhikh, Emin Musaiev, Shuoqi Qiao, Hibiki Kojima, Maksim Jabločnik

Sie sind sehr herzlich eingeladen, die spannenden Ergebnisse der Studierenden verschiedener Studienrichtungen zu hören, die in den interdisziplinären Lehrveranstaltungen von Jean Beers zusammengekommen sind. An diesem späten Nachmittag können Sie neue kreative Strömunungen der jungen Generation entdecken. Zu hören sein werden neu komponierte Werke für Streichquartett, Tango-Ensemble und Akkordeon-Klavier-Duo aus der forschungsgeleiteten Lehre Composer/Performer Relations – Praktikum für zeitgenössische Musik sowie freie Improvisationen an den Schnittstellen zwischen Impressionismus, Jazz, Romantik und zeitgenössischer Musik in großen und kleinen Ensembleformationen zum Forschungsthema Empathie in kollaborativer Improvisation im Rahmen der Lehrveranstaltung Ensemble Improvisation Experimentell (E i E) und Grundlagen der Improvisation. Ferner treten Klavierstudierende aus dem Studiengang Certificate of Performance mit Werken von Chopin und Debussy auf, die unter anderem von Jean Beers zusammen mit Denise Benda und Karl Barth betreut werden.