The concert takes place in Gunnar Sævigssal at The Grieg Academy, Thursday 20 November 20:00
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Developed between 2021 and 2025, the project Co-Creating Virtuosity challenges the historically problematic notion of virtuosity in Western art music and explores a co-creative role of composer, performer, listeners, score, instrument, site, and context as agents in the production of musical meaning. It proposes a co-creative and ethically grounded approach to music-making that moves away from hierarchical traditions.
The project's methodology is based on co-creations with composers, resulting in new compositions written for Sergej’s instrument—the accordion. This concert features a selection of these co-creations, offering insight into how performative knowledge can contribute to more inclusive and responsive musical practices.
The following compositions will be performed:
Francisco Corthey – estamos bien, pero tiemblo (2022)
Arnt Håkon Ånesen – Composing us (2023)
Alfred Zimmerlin – from Akkordeonbuch (2022)
Annette Schmucki – Blumen (2025)
Participants: Sergej Tchirkov, accordion, composers, everyone.
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Sergej Tchirkov (*1980, St. Petersburg) is an accordionist, curator, and researcher based in Bergen.
His interest in contemporary music has led to numerous co-creations with composers such as Pierluigi Billone, Hanna Eimermacher, José María Sánchez Verdú, Ivan Fedele, Tamara Friebel, Klaus Lang, Dmitri Kourliandski, Elena Rykova, Dieter Schnebel, Gérard Zinsstag, Ida Lundén, Sergej Newski, Thomas Kessler, and many others. Around 350 compositions for accordion have been premiered by Tchirkov.
As a guest musician with ensembles such as Collegium Novum Zürich and musicAeterna, Sergej Tchirkov has also performed with leading European orchestras under conductors including Teodor Currentzis, Titus Engel, Wladimir Jurowski, and Susanna Mälkki.
He has given guest lectures at music universities and academies in Zürich, Geneva, Lucerne, Oslo, Gothenburg, Astana, and Kuopio. From 2013 to 2021, he served as artistic deputy director of the Studio for New Music ensemble and as a university lecturer in contemporary music at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow.
He is currently a research fellow in artistic research at the University of Bergen, Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design, Grieg Academy, and serves on the boards of nyMusikk Bergen, Avgarde, and Borealis – Festival for Experimental Music.