- Part of 'A topology of musical encounter' (summary) -
I only became aware of delicate questions around culture and identity when I started studying music and composition at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. The issue of ‘other cultures’ was one of the main topics that students and teachers engaged themselves in - musical innovation through cultural exchange. Important issues were raised on the ethics of treating other cultures musical heritage inside the scope of contemporary music, and about the artistic implications of a certain attitude towards the ‘other’. Are we exotists who engage in a wealth of unknown sounds? Are we imperialists who ‘import’ ideas and sounds for our inventive benefit? Or are we travelers that leave behind what we know and what we master, and try to take steps onto the paths of others?
Many of my earlier works still show a seemingly naive attitude towards cultural traditions. I mixed ideas, forms and gained inspiration from any ‘culture’ that happened to come across my path and caught my interest for a specific reason. I wasn’t engaged in the question being an ‘exotist’ or a musical ‘imperialist’ because I truly didn’t feel these questions to be appropriate to reality. I felt it was the most natural thing to do: to take up those elements from life directly around me that appeal to my musical imagination. Being confronted with these artistic-musical questions about culture and relating them back to my personal experiences, they raised doubts about my own identity, but as well clarified to me that the general approach of defining cultures is outdated.
Some personal experiences convinced me of the necessity for a new musical attitude regarding individualized cultural choices, instead of cultural traditions. I recall a conflict I got in involved with Ud-player Kamal Hors, who has a Berber origin and moved to Holland in the beginning of the 1980s. We collaborated on three concert programmes under the title ‘De wereld een blokkendoos’, in which the synthesis of musical cultures was the central theme. I considered the project a ‘pilot’, to gain knowledge for the larger developments I have been pursuing in Amsterdam. He became furious after I repeatedly asked him to explain me something about Moroccan music. Although it was clear for me that his style of playing was under strong influence of something I expected to be ‘Moroccan’ he did not wish in anyway to describe his musical perspective as Moroccan and felt insulted by my stigmatizing way of treating his musical matters.
Looking back, I now fully agree with him and I admit the mistake in my artistic approach. I should have treated his musical ideas and knowledge, which was very rich and interesting, as a sheer characteristic of his personal musical perspective, and not of any presumed cultural frame which he did not wish to be associated with. His attitude exemplifies the paradox in our present perception of culture and identity. More and more musicians tend towards leaving general cultural definitions behind and focus on other personally driven reasons to connect and collaborate.
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