Be The Music story

Do you know that space, that endless space which sometimes opens at concerts? It is like thick air is filling the hall and you can kind of touch the silence.

What happens in these moments of bliss? 

How do they arise? 

These questions created the urge in me to understand more and to investigate; they moved me to research. I started to look deeper into the aspects of performing and performances. When and where do we connect or disconnect? To what do we connect?  How is it with feelings and thoughts while practising or performing? What about the physical act and the mastering of an instrument, the mental strength and the nervousness? How is it possible that so many professionals in orchestras seem disconnected and bored? While observing and experiencing different aspects of classical music performance I started to understand how inseparable our being, and the awareness of it, are from our music making. 

Be The Music is an attempt to make us more connected with ourselves, the music and the audience. Maybe we can even consciously create that moment of bliss?

I would like to share some of the most important discoveries I made during this process. I am no longer sure in which order they all appeared, but it seems to take form as a puzzle of inspiration which was given to me through the years. 

• M. Csikszentmihalyi’s psychological concept of flow
• M. Emoto’s pictures of frozen water molecules
• K. Stockhausen’s pieces “from the seven days” and intuitive music
• Energetic healing education with Agni Eickermann
• Artistic cooperation with the artist Susanne Oertel
• Mooji’s indications and the old Hindu philosophy Advaita Vedanta
• All the rehearsals, concerts and discussions with Faust Quartett and Dimitri Ashkenazy

In his psychological concept of flow Csikszentmihalyi explains a very important aspect of the concert magic: he calls it the state of flow. In his concept of flow he shows how this special moment, where time disappears and it all seems so effortless, can be created by the right balance of challenge and skill. Studying Csikszentmihalyi's texts in depth gave me a sensation of being able to touch and grasp a big part of the magic from concerts, but I asked myself: do the facts regarding challenge and skill really explain it all? Isn’t there something more in the air when, for example, the genius of a Beethoven string quartet  fills a hall and all within it? 

Seeing M.Emoto’s photographs of water molecules I had a sort of flashback, an understanding, and a deep insight of truth at the same time. His pictures show the geometrical forms of the water and how the vibration of the water is influenced by its surroundings. The water molecule has different forms in different geographical places, it changes when it is exposed to different pieces of music and it varies according to the intentions and words that surround it. Knowing that we are made up of approximately 70% water, Emoto's pictures appeared to me as a clear visual proof of something I felt I had always known: the immense power of vibration and our receptiveness to it.

K.Stockhausen’s pieces “From the Seven Days” became my first conscious exercises in training my receptiveness to vibrations. In the pieces he asks us musicians to receive all kind of different vibrations and play them. This was my first experience with intuitive music, and it was a truly great discovery.

My second conscious exercise in training my receptiveness of vibrations was to study energetic healing. I learned to  receive the vibrations of others through my own body, which gave me a sensation of mirroring, and I immediately started to let the vibration I had mirrored resound through my viola. As I, in the same period, found myself in front of the fascinating world of  Susanne Oertel’s artworks, it was so natural for me, to mirror and to read the vibration of her paintings and give it sound. 

Remembering Csikszentmihalyi challenge and skill, I did find a deep challenge in the work on vibrations, the challenge of being able to connect deeply. I gave myself the task to “be” the vibration I choose to play, before starting to play.  But how could I consciously “become” a certain vibration? In that moment the real work on transparency started. And many new questions arose: 

What is my vibration? 

How can I create a transparent state in myself, which allows me to feel a sort of “zero” before mirroring a different vibration? 

Carrying this search with me for many years, I was finally lucky to discover the teachings of the spiritual teacher Mooji ( he follows the old Hindu philosophy of non-dualism, advaita vedanta). Through his indications  I was able to understand and clarify my inner human nature, and more than anything I discovered the place of silence. This silence has become my base - it is the transparent state I was looking for - the core of it all, and my home.

Be The Music is a challenge to stay connected - a challenge to stay faithful to the music - and this challenge with its skill definitely takes us closer to the mystical and sacred moments of concerts. Through connection and concentration, through deep listening and knowledge we can open the space to the intangible magic of listening to music together. Be The Music has become a holistic performance practice,  a practice wherein we become an instrument to support the essence and expression of the music, wherein the first priority is to be in service to the music.  This is a real challenge - so, as we learn the skills, flow will come along.

Campanula Circle

Campanula Circle is an ensemble that works on expanding consciousness and investigates how our whole existence influences the music we play. Subtly, but concretely, they manage to embody the essence beyond the notes and still keep the focus on the the musical and technical mastering of the performance. The Campanula instruments are in the centre of the circle. They are new versions of the classical string instruments, built for the acoustics of nature, in the form of a bell-flower, with different numbers of resonance strings. The instruments make it possible to discover unique concert stages in nature and open a space for deep listening.

The Campanula

The campanula string instruments are newly invented instruments by violin maker Helmut Bleffert. Bleffert was asked to make an instrument in the shape of a plant, and chose to use the campanula (bell flower) as his basic idea. The campanulas are different from normal string instruments because they have a set of resonance strings (I call it a second “floor” of strings).

Personally I play both a campanula viola and a campanula quinton (a five-stringed viola), each with seven resonance strings under the normal ones. The effect of the resonance strings is that the instrument itself has its own small “church”, or own acoustical space - because of these strings, but also because of their special natural form (they have the shape of a campanula flower), these instruments sound especially beautiful outside.

The campanula inspires me to take new directions with music, and with its strong physical effect (through the resonance strings), my body, the space around it and even time feel different.

Intentive Intuitive

With Intentive Intuitive I want to inspire you to play intuitive music with a clear essence. What can we move with our sounds? How does the music influence us and the listeners? Through the placement of an intention before playing we can give directions to our sounds and we can communicate the music and its essence on a very deep level. Besides performing we can use this kind of playing as self-care, meditation, communication exercises as well as inquiry. But more than anything, it can help us to be totally present with our notes, sounds, music, with our being and with each other.

“Schläft ein Lied in allen Dingen, träumt in ihnen fort und fort. Die ganze Welt fängt an zu singen, triffst du nur das Zauberwort.”

This wonderful poem by J.v. Eichendorff has encouraged me to hear “the song which sleeps in all things”. When I listen carefully and connect to a chosen “thing” (being, phenomenon, plant , object, artwork et al.) - I do hear the song….

I will happily introduce you to intentive intuitive playing in a 3-day preliminary course. This little course suits both professionals and amateurs on all instruments. You receive exercises and work on them for yourself before we meet for a personal exchange (probably digitally). Intentive intuitive playing expands our hearing as well as our musical skills and it teaches us to listen beyond the notes.

Future Language Lab

“Future Language Lab” is an workshop to experience a different form of communication. We attempt to discover a possible future language together, a language from heart to heart. We listen and share without activating the usual part of the brain. This creates a new vibration of communication. Like opening a new door to a room full of trust, deep listening, acceptance and empathy we welcome something new. I invite to meet on this level both live and digitally. Let me know if you are curious!

Transparency work

My transparency work is driven by the wish to truly hear. To hear and experience the silence. To listen beyond my own feelings, reactions, patterns, thoughts and even beyond my conditioned ear. It is based on the old indian philosophy Advaita Vedanta. The first step is to distinguish between the changing parts and the unchanging part in our selves, the challenge is to find rest in the unchanging.

I invite to transparency meditations and sessions of personal inquiry work. Purification is a path to clarity, joy and peace.

Biography

Ada Meinich is an uncommonly versatile violist. Born in Oslo in 1980, she began her formal studies in her hometown before fine- tuning her particular musical expression in Stockholm, Frankfurt, Berlin and Salzburg as a student of, among others, Bjørn Sjøgren, Tabea Zimmermann and Veronika Hagen.

While studying she was asked to substitute in the Berlin Philharmonic and later on she worked in Claudio Abbado’s “Orchestra Mozart” in Bologna. In 2008 she joined the Faust Quartett and performed with them all through Central Europe and Oceania up until 2015. She has played at many renowned festivals and venues, both as a soloist and in chamber music. Her partners are, among others, Bernd Glemser, Julia Schröder, Andrew Haveron, Eric Lamb, Dimitri Ashkenazy and Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Ada’s main emphasis in music has always been to search for, express and communicate the essence of music. In 2018, after many years of experiments and investigation, she created the holistic performance practice “Be The Music”, a teaching method focused on how to use your whole being as an instrument while performing. The same year Ada also invited to the first “Be The Music” festival on the island Hvasser in Oslofjord. It has become an annual festival called Klassisk ved Havet where many concerts are played outside in nature on Campanula instruments. “Play what you are or be what you play” is the guideline, both for the festival as well as for all Ada’s work with music.

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Lebenslauf

Ada Meinich ist eine einzigartige und vielseitige Bratschistin. Ihr norwegischer Unternehmungsgeist hat Ada schon in jungen Jahren bewogen, nach Zentraleuropa zu reisen und die Wurzeln der klassischen Musik kennen zu lernen. Ihren besonderen musikalischen Ausdruck hat sie durch Studien an der Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt am Main, an der Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" in Berlin und an der Universität "Mozarteum" in Salzburg verfeinert. Ihre Professoren waren Tabea Zimmermann und Veronika Hagen.

Während des Studiums hat sie regelmässig bei den Berliner Philharmonikern ausgeholfen und anschliessend in Claudio Abbados “Orchestra Mozart” in Bologna mehrere Jahre lang mitgespielt. 2008 wurde sie die Bratschistin des Faust Quartettes, mit welchem sie seither quer durch Europa und Ozeanien konzertiert hat. Sie hat als Solistin und Kammermusikerin bei grossen Festivals und in renommierten Häusern gespielt, u.a. mit Musikern wie Bernd Glemser, Julia Schröder, Andrew Haveron, Frans Helmersson, Dimitri Ashkenazy und Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Beim Musizieren sucht Ada immer den Ausdruck der Essenz zu kommunizieren.  In 2018, nach vielen Jahre mit Experimenten und Forschung, hat sie die ganzheitliche Aufführungspraxis „Be The Music“ kreiert, eine Methode, die sich darauf konzentriert, wie man beim Spielen das ganze Wesen als Instrument nutzen kann.

Im selben Jahr lud Ada auch ein zum ersten  „Be The Music“ - Festival auf der Insel Hvasser im Oslofjord. Es ist schon zu einem jährlichen Ereignis geworden namens Klassisk ved Havet, wo viele Konzerte draußen in der Natur auf Campanula-Instrumenten gespielt werden. “Spiel’ was du bist oder sei was du spielst" ist der rote Faden, sowohl für das Festival als auch für Adas musikalische Arbeit.

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Me by Ada - 2015
The unofficial Bio

I was born in 1980 in Oslo.

When I was 8 years old, I found my grandfather's dusty violin under the sofa. I felt an immediate connection and an urge to make it alive - to make it sound. I managed, and was deeply fascinated. Playing the violin was really  something special, suddenly the adults were still, and some kind of different communication took place. I loved it  and was taken by the strong wish of sharing. Sharing and expressing it all. All the “stuff” which stays “unspoken” had space in the music. This sharing of music is the middle of me.

Said with other words:

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.
Victor Hugo

My life path and my person have been formed and fulfilled by truly remarkable and unforgettable meetings, many of them through music.

I was only 11 years old when I first heard and met Yuri Bashmet. It was late at night, in a church in Oslo, and he played Schubert’s “Arpeggione” Sonata and Shostakovich's Viola Sonata op.posth. The mystical viola sounds and the magical atmospheres he created inspired my immediate change from the violin to the viola!

The viola gave me new opportunities, and I was asked to play with far more skilled instrumentalists. I was invited for a weekend at the seaside, with three other girls (we were around 14 years old), to discover the string quartet. We read Schubert's “Death and the Maiden” - and were absolutely breathtaken. We couldn't stop playing, the music loaded us with pictures and imagery, we had to play it over and over again. The experience of playing string quartet was very special to me - to feel the common pulse and to try to understand and analyze the expression of the music together fascinated me, and it became a dream for me to play string quartet. The other girls and I all studied at “Barratt-Dues Musikkinstitutt”, which is a small and very fine music school in Oslo. Here I met countless fantastic musicians and teachers, and I grew fast into the form of a quite awake and active violist.

The most important musician I met in my youth is the Norwegian violinist Henning Kraggerud. He happened to rent the cellar apartment in my mother's house, so I could even sneak around listening to how he practiced. He is mad about getting the expression of the music clear, and would repeat phrases and bars till midnight and longer if he wasn’t 200% convinced. I realized that being a musician was hard work, and at the same time I understood that music was what I had to do. Quite soon I took the consequences and left my hometown Oslo, at seventeen, to start studying in Stockholm.

My sustainable memory of Stockholm is of the empty practice rooms and the music of J.S.Bach’s Suites and the Sevcik op.2 “bow exercises”. Bjørn Sjøgren, who was my teacher, is a very sincere man and he supported me enormously. He is an honest and humble person, and he showed me that music is so much bigger than we humans. Beside practicing and practicing in Stockholm, I listened through all the viola CDs I could find, and I decided that Tabea Zimmermann was “the” musician I really had to meet. Already in 2000 I went down to Frankfurt to listen to her teaching, and after entering her viola universe, there was really no way back. Luckily I succeeded and could enter her class a few months later.

There were always violists around Tabea, and the lessons were crowded by guests. Some of the violists I met were Danusha Waskiewicz, Antoine Tamestit, Micha Afkam and Simone Jandl. We were following each other in the class, and I think I learned as much from listening to the other students as from playing myself. She trains classical articulation hard and is merciless with dirty intonation.  In 2002 Tabea got a professorship in Berlin and decided to move and to take her whole class with her. To enter the new university, we did a big “viola concert” (already a tradition of Tabea’s) and performed chamber music for violas at the “Konzerthaus” in Berlin.  To be on stage with Tabea taught me things that are absolutely unique; about how concentration and relaxation can make music flow and how easy it can feel to play the viola….something close to flying, maybe?………Flying in Berlin was far from anything I had ever experienced; it was like the whole city moved in waves: some people slowly, some nearly dancing, bicyclists on the pavement and on top, the metro, which runs on long bridges above the city. Fantastic concerts and musicians from all over the world on every second corner. The total emptiness between east and west, and the strange non-existing division of the town: Berlin became a dadaist city for me.

I started to discovere life, and freed myself a bit from the disciplined student life. I substituted in the Berlin Philharmonic and discovered Argentinian tango in a backyard close to where I lived. Four saxophonists from Buenos Aires were playing live, and it was crowded with dancing couples. They were all in love with the music, and so was I, after creeping together on the floor in the salon. I couldn't stop listening, so I started dancing.

After a few years I danced all the way to Buenos Aires. It was and still is like a dream - my month in the capital of tango. Nothing is impossible there and the Argentinian grocers are fruit poets. I am sure they speak to the tomatoes and dance with the aubergines - I couldn't stop shopping! I didn’t just meet veggies , more than anything I had some unforgettable meetings with musicians in BsAs, among them “Pipi“ Piazzolla (son of A.Piazzolla), Fernando Suarez Paz (the last violinist of A.Piazzolla's quintet), Martin Pantyrer and Pedro Rossi. Pedro Rossi quite immediately asked me “what is your music?” and I shocked myself when I didn't know what to answer. The classical music is what I feel closest to, but can I say it is “mine”?…..i went straight to my instrument and started a very long search, both through improvisation and composing.

Meanwhile my Argentinian trip ended and my classical music path went on. After a recommendation from Antoine Tamestit, I started a Master in Chamber Music with Veronika Hagen in Salzburg.  In Veronika I found the most warm and generous person - a great teacher and a friend. She gave me strength in nailing my interpretations and encouraged me to follow my personal wishes and dreams. The most special about Veronika was that she  (kept listening to my scales) always did what she could to listen to my concerts - she even came to a bar to listen to tangos.  In Salzburg I worked closely with the Argentinian guitarist Federico Diaz. We made modern arrangements of tangos, chacareras and sambas for viola and guitar. We still give concerts together, but now we are concentrating our work on contrasts. We put contrasting music and music styles beside each other and melodies from countries in violent relationships with one another are forced to “make peace” in one and the same piece.  It is a quite crazy experiment and it absolutely challenges us - it feels like expanding.

After finishing my studies in Salzburg I decided to move back home to Oslo. My father and I drove the whole way up with my collected belongings, and I was very happy to finally be back in Norway. Unfortunately and also luckily I was, a few weeks later, contacted by the “Faust Quartett”: They asked if I wanted to be tried out as their new violist. The dream of the string quartet had kept following me, and over and over again I had tried to put together a quartet or at least a trio. But it is not easy for four people to stay together during studies, nor after them. Life brings so many possibilities and choices.  For me, the chance to possibly play string quartet made me forget about all the other choices and all  sentimentality about Norway. Half a year after driving up from Salzburg, I moved down again, to Cologne and the Faust Quartett. Being tried out in the quartet involved many nice concerts, and one of them turned out being life changing for me. We met up with the clarinettist Dimitri Ashkenazy to rehearse before performing in Rivoli. Besides meeting one of the best musicians and listeners I have ever experienced, I met a person who filled me with an immediate softness. The next day we crashed on the Italian autostrada and the softness turned total. We somehow managed to get to our concert in Rivoli without a car, and took our life-and-death experience onstage with us. We fell in love.

My life really changed. I had a string quartet to care for, a man and soon a baby. Life in a string quartet is quite particular. It is a school in seeing the essence and the real message behind, to find a common language and to find the channel and the tools to make the music free. It is a very close working relation where there is really no “privacy”, even my thoughts were naked. There is so much power and so much fun being four vital women in a quartet - it is intense, and also exhausting. That’s probably why I have started wanting to do everything by myself. It is a very nice change not to be depending on anybody. I am writing my own texts, making them into songs that i sing and accompany myself with the viola. This is at the moment the most simple and direct way for me to express the depth of my soul or maybe of our souls. I enjoy sharing music, and hope to share it with you soon ;)

Me by Ada - 2021
Learning, becoming and honouring

I am a listener. I am also a musician and a violist, a curious researcher and an adventurer. The word “impossible” doesn’t exist in my dictionary. I honour my teachers Soon-Mi Chung, Alf Richard Kraggerud, Henning Kraggerud, Bjørn Sjøgren, Tabea Zimmermann and Veronika Hagen for their clear guidance and patience and for supporting me in finding rich emotional acoustics and a reliable technique.

I honour the orchestras where I was allowed to dive into the big wonderful repertoire of classical music: Mahler Youth Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Orchestra Mozart, Spiramirabilis and Geneva Camerata.

I honour the conductors who helped me open my ears: Heinz Wallberg, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Claudio Abbado and Bernard Haitink and my wonderful chamber music colleagues Bernd Glemser, Joanna Kamenarska, Christian Ihle Hadland, Ida Bryhn, Lorenza Borrani, Danusha Waskiewicz and Vladimir Ashkenazy.

I love my instruments: a viola built in 1999 by Barbara Gschaider and a Campanula Quinton (a viola with an E string and 7 resonance strings) built by Helmut Bleffert.

I honour the time I had with the Faust Quartett: the long rehearsals, the discussions, the search for our path, the sharing of travels, rooms, clothes, pregnancies, problems , passions and more than anything the profound and unifying space with music.

I honour David Greilsammer for moving a whole orchestra out of their comfort zones: he made us play by memory and dance, while Juan Cruz taught us how to fill every moment and every note with our authentic and ever fresh truth.

I honour Dimitri Ashkenazy for how he showed me real listening and how he guided me in the process of creating “Be The Music”. I honour myself to have the courage to keep my focus on Be The Music which is a guidance for musicians to open into a new dimension of connecting and performing.

I honour Mooji for showing me where the real silence is. I am grateful to life, to music and to all beings. Still listening….

Your song

I invite you to listen to yourself as music, to listen to a sound-mirror of your being. We meet digitally or live and start off with a small exchange about how life is moving and about what wants to be heard in you. Then you can close your eyes and listen to your song.

“Schläft ein Lied in allen Dingen, träumt in ihnen fort und fort. Die ganze Welt fängt an zu singen, triffst du nur das Zauberwort.”

"A song slumbers in all things, dreams in them eternally all the world begins to sing, if you but find the secret key"

This wonderful poem by J.v. Eichendorff has encouraged me to hear “the song which sleeps in all things”. When I listen carefully and connect to a chosen “thing” (being, phenomenon, plant, object, work of art et al.) - I do hear the song….