The Creative Pod Collective Concert is now online

13 August 2021

The Creative Pod Collective Concert is now online
We are looking back on the Creative Pod Collective concert. The collective is made up of bachelor as well as master students from various departments of the Royal Conservatoire. As a result, the students created a cross-departmental and collaborative performance which they presented during a concert. Watch back the entire concert in the video below.


Creative Collaborative Pod event
A ‘pod’ is the collective noun for a group of dolphins or whales, and like these creatures, humans are intelligent and intrinsically social animals with the capacity for playful behaviour. Felix Schlarmann and Susan Williams are currently carrying out research into peer learning within the Koninklijk Conservatorium. They set up several learning environments in which students would explore an aspect of learning or creation, led by the students themselves. The Creative Collaboration Pod is an interdepartmental group of twelve students who were first invited to participate in ‘Duo for a day’ where two musicians from different departments spend a day together creating a piece of music that was then shared with the group. In June the whole group spent four days creating, rehearsing and producing a concert as a ‘collective’. Representing five KC departments – Classical, Jazz, Early Music, Sonology and Art of Sound – they each utilised their individual skills and creativity as well as pushing their own boundaries to produce a unique event.

Description of the Collective Event
The end of the second part of the project was a group phase where the students worked together as a collective creating and curating a concert. In their presentation The Seasons, the group divided into smaller sub groups, as well as making transitions and tutti sections using the idea of the four seasons as a theme. Compositions from several genres are combined with improvisations, text and sound effects, being played as a continuous piece of music, ending in a final tutti choral composed by group members.

The concert was recorded at Studio Loos in The Hague and is themed as Beyond Genre.


Musicians of the Creative Pod Collective:
Adam Rocek - sound magician and live electronics
André Teixeira - piano
Aseo Friesacher - piano
Emilio Botto - natural and modern trumpet
Gregor Connelly - Weather God and pedal magician
Kerim Kali - God of Death and modular synthesizer
Lidija Strika - double bass
Lorenzo Mastrogregori - drums
Marco Torres Lunshof - guitar and effects
Veronica Cimino - voice and violin
Vivian De Graaf - violin