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Matteo explores new ways of listening

For Matteo Gherardi Vignolo, the Master of Music in Arnhem felt like a whole new world. In Italy, he studied jazz drums and music education. There, everything was fixed: courses, exams and rules. At ArtEZ Academy of Music in Arnhem, he found what he had been missing: the freedom to choose his own direction. Now, he is working on an experimental graduation performance. The audience sits among the musicians, while the sound fills the entire space.

The freedom to decide for yourself what music can be

‘At first, the freedom honestly scared me a little,’ Matteo says. ‘I came from an educational system where everything was already decided for you. In this master’s programme, I could suddenly choose what I wanted to research myself. That felt almost unreal.’

Matteo does not use his instrument in the way you would normally expect a trumpet to sound. He experiments with alternative playing techniques, works with electronics and uses sound as a way to reshape how people experience a space or situation.

‘Usually, people listen to music mainly through emotion,’ he explains. ‘But sound does much more than that. It also shapes how you experience a place. In daily life, you constantly hear rhythms, layers and volumes around you, but we almost never stop to think about them.’

For Matteo, that became the starting point of his artistic research. What happens when people start listening more consciously? What do you suddenly notice when music is no longer only about melody or structure?

‘At the Master of Music I became obsessed with making music again.’
Matteo Gherardi Vignolo, student Master of Music at ArtEZ Academy of Music in Arnhem

Touring Taiwan and China with tape, objects and sound

During the master’s programme, Matteo collaborated with Yuxin Wu from the Sound of Innovation programme. Together, they created performances using everyday objects to make sound. ‘We weren’t using traditional instruments,’ Matteo says. ‘We worked with tape, contact microphones and objects that normally have nothing to do with making music. We try to use familiar objects in unfamiliar ways. For example, by amplifying sounds that people would normally never consciously notice. For us, it’s not only about the sound itself, but also about how people listen to it.’

The performances eventually led to a self-organised tour through Taiwan and China. Together, they arranged venues, performances, contacts and funding opportunities. Especially in China, organising the tour came with challenges. ‘Everything works differently there,’ Matteo explains. ‘Different social media platforms, different communication channels and completely different ways of organising things. Yuxin is from China, and without her it would have been almost impossible.’

For Matteo, the experience showed how much becomes possible when you stay open to collaboration across disciplines and cultures.

Working across disciplines without losing yourself as a musician

During the master’s programme, Matteo discovered that interdisciplinary work does not mean music suddenly becomes less important. ‘First of all, I’m still a musician,’ he says. ‘But why should I limit myself to only that?’

Besides performing, he is also interested in recording, producing, mixing and electronics. He collaborates with other makers and explores how different disciplines can strengthen each other without feeling forced. ‘I think we live in a time where you need to broaden yourself,’ he says. ‘But you also have to stay honest with yourself. You simply can’t be everything at once.’

According to Matteo, that is exactly where the strength of the Master of Music in Arnhem lies. ‘No one tells you what music is supposed to be here,’ he says. ‘You get the freedom to figure that out for yourself.’

A graduation performance with the audience inside the sound

For his final performance, Matteo collaborates with pianist Lucas Molle and cellist Kim Jäger. ‘It’s not going to be a standard concert with a stage at the front and the audience sitting in rows,’ he says. ‘The musicians will be placed in the middle of the room, surrounded by the audience. I want people to physically experience the sound. Not just listen to a concert, but really notice what sound does to a space.’

During the performance, compositions, improvisation and experimental sounds constantly shift and interact. Sometimes the sound feels intimate and close; moments later it becomes loud and overwhelming. Matteo uses those contrasts deliberately to play with concentration, distance and attention. ‘We’re used to recognising or understanding music immediately,’ he says. ‘I want people to stop searching for what something is supposed to mean.’

That is why his final performance is not only about playing music, but also about listening differently. ‘I’m not trying to give answers,’ Matteo says. ‘I mostly want people to allow themselves to simply experience what they hear.’

‘No one at the Master of Music tells you what music is supposed to be. You get the freedom to figure that out for yourself.’
Matteo Gherardi Vignolo, student Master of Music at ArtEZ Academy of Music in Arnhem

‘You don’t have to be only one thing here’

Looking back on his time in the master’s programme, Matteo mainly sees how much freedom he was given to reinvent himself as an artist. ‘I became obsessed with making music again,’ he says. ‘Purely because I finally felt allowed to explore what I personally found interesting.’

According to him, that freedom is exactly what future students should know about the Master of Music in Arnhem. ‘You decide for yourself what you focus on here,’ he says. ‘If I want to dive deeply into something for two months, I can do that. And afterwards, I can move on to discovering something else. That’s the beauty of it. Nobody tells you that you’re only allowed to be one thing.’

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