Harmonic Space Orchestra Open Rehearsal

The Harmonic Space Orchestra (HSO) is a Berlin-based experimental research and performance collective with Rational Intonation / extended Just Intonation at the core of its practice.

Here instrumentalists and interested listeners are invited to hear the open rehearsal process of the collective.

Focusing on material/repertoire inherent to its members, the group currently consists of 16 composer-performers, musicians who engage in practice-based research into Harmonic Space. This concept, created by the late American composer James Tenney, redefines harmony as a potentially infinite, multi-dimensional lattice of rational intervals. The Harmonic Space Orchestra includes internationally-renowned and established, as well as emerging or young composer-performers, working together. They combine approaches—using the Helmholtz-Ellis JI Pitch Notation developed by members of the ensemble that is now widely recognized; favoring numbers over letters; relations over coordinates; drawing on embodied performance practices apart from staff notation altogether; approaches referencing Spectralism; synthesis and analysis; Indian Classical music practices. Each member brings individual perspectives challenging and shaping the group’s approach to perception and music.

Questioning notions of phenomenology and referring to harmony as multi-layered, flexible, expansive structures, HSO shifts from traditional concepts of harmony and at the same time revisits existing repertoire with new found perspectives. The HSO collective values and prioritizes deep exploration and methodological research as an ensemble practice. They create work, they develop work, and they question how to work.

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