| Bridges is a collaborative composition composed by Kai Niggemann, Marlon Schumacher, Johannes Kretz, Andrea Szigetvári and Ivana Ognjanovic—KIMJA being an anagram made of the first name's first letters. Bridges was composed exclusively on the Internet with no physical contact between the composers whatsoever, and premiered simultanously on June 17, 2005 at the Elektronische Nacht of the Stuttgart Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst as well as the Lange Nacht of the Gesellschaft für Neue Musik Münster.
The participating composer Kai Niggemann writes:
“Bridges” is a ten-minute Quintet.net piece consisting of five parts, each written by one of the original perfomers. Every part has it’s own sounddesign, as well as matching video images.
Johannes Kretz, Kai Niggemann, Ivana Ognjanovic, Marlon Schumacher and Andrea Szigetvári created the music of “Bridges” using Georg Hajdu’s Max/MSP patch “Quintet.net”, which allows up to five players to perform live from all over the world, connected to each other (and a conductor) through the Internet.
The composition was laid out in a score for five players. Due to the nature of the quintet.net technology (using the Internet, you can never tell when exactly a note will arrive at all five players), the score leaves space for a lot of interpretation: Time bracket instructions like “play the following between 1:20 min and 1:50 min” are very common.
“I think, it is extremely important to leave a lot of space in the composition for interpretation. If the performers don't have much freedom, it would be better to create a tape piece together. It would be more perfect and less risky. The connecting of people through internet only makes sense, when the interaction between those performers has a wide field of possibilities for spontaneous performing.” says Johannes Kretz about the special qualities of composing for quintet.net.
Each composer based their part on some very personal accounts. Inspired by their environment, history of the country or city, or a philosophical idea, they all used very different approaches on the subject of bridges:
Bridges are described in more than one way: as buildings, metaphors, strategically important places, and eventually as the concept behind linking five musicians through the means of quintet.net and the Internet. Ivana Ognjanovic for example was inspired by the destruction of several Danube-bridges in Novi Sad in 1999 that obstructed travel across and even on the river for years after, whereas Marlon Schumacher describes his composition like this: “I imagine the bridge as not leading from one side to the other, but instead in a state of transfiguration, taking a plunge into the opposite element, that which is underneath the bridge”
In fact, in the first stages of “Bridges”, the piece itself was the only link between some of the members of the ensemble until 2006. During the entire phase of composition, rehearsal and even several public performances, the ensemble relied solely on the Internet for communication.
Kai Niggemann who was sounddesigner for quintet.net “Mind.Trip” in 1999, now composed for Quintet.net for the first time: “Composition and sounddesign are even more important for quintet.net than for other forms of ensembles. In a typical listening environment, the audience will only ever see one player, but should be able to identify the notes coming from the different players online. Sometimes a surround system with five speakers is workable, but the right sounddesign truely supports a transparent performance.
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