The Viennese music collective Studio Dan has investigated the intersection of new jazz and contemporary avant-garde for the last two decades with commissioned works from radically different aesthetic fields. Walking Through a Brave New World -8 Improvisations for Ensemble (2008-14) is the dystopian work of Austrian composer Axel Seidelmann, who is also a puppeteer, conductor, the head of the Institute for Composition and Electroacoustics at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, and the founder of the Tonmeister program in Austria.
This work describes our world, threatened from all sides, even though the underlying piece dates back to the Bush era, which almost seems harmless from today’s perspective. It was inspired by and references Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), George Orwell’s 1984 (1949), François Truffaut’s film Fahrenheit 451 (1966), Frank Zappa’s song “Plastic People” (from Absolutely Free, Verve, 1967), Bobby McFerrin’s anthem (“Don’t Worry, Be Happy”) (1988).
The hour-long, eight-movement Walking Through a Brave New World is a powerful musical
