Korzo UP#5 with Alison Isadora

“When you open your ears, your world starts to shift.”

Alison Isadora is a composer, violinist, feminist, and political philosopher. On January 15, she will present new work during Musical Utopias at Korzo. Originally from Aotearoa/New Zealand, Isadora has built a rich and diverse body of work over the past forty years. Everything she does is guided by one central question: how can music help us rethink our relationship with the world so that humans stop placing themselves at the center? Meet this passionate world-changer.

Isadora has lived in the Netherlands for nearly forty years. She arrived as a classical violinist, but her musical background is anything but straightforward: punk bands, gamelan, baroque ensembles, contemporary music. “I always did a dozen things at once,” she says. “And through that, I became more aware of how we make music together.”

How did that awareness take shape? 
“When I was 22, I played second violin in an orchestra. It struck me how hierarchical it all was. You play, watch the clock, and function almost like an office worker, where information moves in only one direction. I remember feeling very strongly: this doesn’t make me happy. It wasn’t the music itself, but the structure of it. Who speaks, who listens, who sets the pace: these are never neutral questions.”

Were things different at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague?
“I was confronted with the same traditional ideas here, too. The focus was very much turned inward and music history was sometimes presented as if it existed separate from the world, while in reality, it’s deeply embedded in the power structures.”

Why is that bad?
“It’s dangerous when a culture listens only to itself. If you don’t hear anything else, you might start to think your tradition is superior. You can see this in music but also in the broader social ideas about Europe, about whiteness, about what’s considered ‘high’ or ‘good’ culture.” 

That sensitivity to history seems closely tied to your background in Aotearoa/New Zealand.
“In the 1980s, I saw firsthand how Māori communities, often led by women, fought for land, language, and fishing rights. Since then, there’s been slow but real recovery: the language is returning and the land is being given back. It’s far from perfect – inequality still exists – but a kind of collective awareness has started to take shape. For me as well.”

How is that awareness expressed in your music?
“A few years ago, I finished my PhD in which I explored the relationship between composer, performer, score, space, and audience. These roles aren’t fixed – they emerge in relation to each other. I like to use the word entanglement. Music is a situation and part of a larger whole. That idea connects to the work of feminist thinkers who inspire me, like Donna Haraway [author of Staying with the Trouble!, Ed.]. She’s a philosopher with a background in science and challenges the strict separation of culture and nature, bringing them together in a single word: natureculture.”

“I don’t believe in ‘nature’ as something that exists outside of us. We’re part of it. Always.”

How does this conviction resonate in your music?
“As a violinist, I discovered early on that birds are intrigued by very high notes. They start interacting with you. So, I started creating duets with native birds. Later, in New Zealand, I made field recordings in a bird sanctuary in the heart of Wellington. You always hear something human in their sounds: a plane, a lawnmower. That realization is important to me. We can’t erase ourselves from the landscape or separate ourselves from it. How we listen to those sounds shapes how we relate to the world. Listening requires attention and attention reshapes what we consider important. Instead of placing ourselves at the center, we can also position ourselves alongside it. That’s called de-centralizing.” 

How is that expressed in Sharing Space (With a River) for Musical Utopias?
“In Sharing Space, we follow four seasonal cycles for nine years in the floodplains of the Rhine, together with musicians from the Luna Quartet. Each season brings different sounds and frequencies. Field recordings alternate with live performances, or the live music responds to or imitates them. Sometimes it sounds like a chainsaw. The goal isn’t to shock but to make audible everything that’s happening. What will happen to our rivers when there's no meltwater left?” 

What do you hope to inspire in the audience?
“I hope the audience experiences time, hears change, and wonders what kinds of relationships are possible. Not just with other people, but with the ‘other-than-human.’”

That kind of listening is asking a lot of your audience. I find it difficult. How can you help us get started?
“I sometimes talk to the audience before a concert and use text in Sharing Space. The goal isn’t to explain everything but to offer tools. Sometimes I use listening questions. Is what you hear far away or close by? Is the sound grainy? Soft? We’re so much better at processing visual information than sound.”

Can you share one of those tools with us now?
“Sit still for a few minutes and listen to your surroundings. Register what you hear without judgment. Suddenly, things will start to sound different. Space will start to open up. Music is about more than just emotion; it’s a sensory and intellectual practice, a way of exploring forms, processes, and relationships. Not everything has to be understood. Sometimes, it’s enough to stay open.”

Click here to buy tickets to Musical Utopias on Thursday, January 15, with Luna Quartet & Alison Isadora!

Image Alison: Alex Schröder.