DAMcademy is a contemporary music academy founded in 2019 as a cooperation between Oerknal and DAM Festival Prishtina, Kosovo. Its aim is to offer musicians from conservatories in Kosovo and the broader Balkan region the opportunity to study, rehearse and perform contemporary repertoire alongside members of Oerknal.

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Guided by American conductor and composer Gregory Charette, this program will enable selected composers to work directly with the players of Oerknal during a week of workshops and rehearsals in Prishtina. Selected composers will write a piece of between 6-10 minutes for an ensemble of flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, 2 violins, viola, cello (composers are free to write for a smaller subset of the ensemble so long as the piece includes at least 5 instruments). The residency will culminate with a public concert in Prishtina as part of DAM Festival 2019 (26 - 31 March 2019). After this concert the members of Oerknal will select one of the six composers to write a piece for full ensemble to be featured in Oerknal’s 2019/20 season with performances around The Netherlands. In this way the ultimate goal of BCCP is to build substantive relationships between composers and music institutions in the Balkans and the EU.

 

The 2019 edition of BCCP was made possible in part through generous donations from the European Union "Culture for Change" initiative, Arthur Klaassens, Lewis Nielson and Stephanie Sprague. 

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Information regarding the second edition of BCCP, to be held in spring 2021, will be announced soon! 

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