Simon Steen-Andersen

Work for Live Art Danmark
2023 “Black Box Music” at Life Art for Children 2023.

Black Box Music
In Black Box Music, a work by composer Simon Steen Andersen for solo percussion, video and ensemble, it is not the musicians, but rather the hands of the Norwegian conductor Håkon Stene that take the focus on stage. In an otherwise almost completely dark auditorium, where we scarcely see the musiscians, his hands perform in a  Black Box that reminds us of a puppet theatre, and is projected onto the wall above it. Black Box Music is an investigation, deconstruction and rethinking of the role of the conductor in a classical ensemble. During the incredibly energetic, humorous and entertaining work the hands acted not only as a conductor in the traditional sense, but also as a musical instrument, soloist and puppeteer.

About the Artist
Simon is a Danish composer and stage director based in Berlin. He works with a multidisciplinary approach to musical performance and the concert situation, resulting in works situated between the categories of music, performance, theatre, choreography and film.

He studied composition with Rasmussen, Spahlinger, Valverde and Sorensen in Aarhus, Freiburg, Buenos Aires and Copenhagen 1998-2006. He has been a member of the Berlin Academy of the Arts since 2016 and the Royal Swedish Academy of Music since 2018.

Since 2018 he teaches composition and music theatre at the University of the Arts Bern (HKB), Switzerland and as associate professor at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus, Denmark.

And his website is here.