The music we love!

Music has the extraordinary power to evoke emotions and transform moments of our lives into indelible memories.

Some melodies inspire us, others give us energy, make us smile, reflect or even move us. In many cases, they become the soundtrack to our experiences, transporting us to distant worlds or enriching the present with unique suggestions.

What would be the perfect music to listen to while visiting a museum? And more specifically, what melody could accompany the experience at Explora, the Children’s Museum in Rome?

The answer to this question is the Euromuse project (discover the project), which offered Explora the opportunity to host two young talents from the international music scene.

Thanks to this collaboration, musicians Maia Steinberg Fainblit (Netherlands) and John Konsolakis (Greece) have created an exclusive composition, designed to resonate in the museum spaces and accompany visitors during all the visiting times.

To find out more about their creative process and the link between music and the museum experience, we interviewed the two artists.

In a double interview, they told us about their background, their musical vision and the emotions they hope to convey with this unique composition.

Discover their answers and immerse yourself in the combination of art, music and emotion.

Which musical genres do you prefer and why?

Maia: “Regarding the music I like to listen to or to play, this is Latin American folklore music, and more specifically Argentinian folklore and Uruguayan/argentinian tango, which I find of an enormous richness both in its content and music. I also like a lot of different types of music, it is very difficult for me to say that I prefer one specific type of genre. My taste varies with time and mood, I am very open to new music. For me the most important thing is the meaning that the music carries, the lyrics, the messages, the way it touches upon a subject. That is related to my music taste. When it comes to composing and creating music, I like very much working with ambient music, creating soundscapes, atmospheric music spaces, using singing bowls, synthesizers, vocal loops. But every composition depends on the project, as I work with different types of music. I also like mixing music with poetry.”

John: “I like to listen to and explore all sorts of music. It’s like a deep well that keeps on giving no matter how often you take from it. I of course love western classical music – I was brought up as a clarinet player, playing in orchestras for years, and it has had an enormous impact on my life and the way I write. However, I also love exploring the contemporary music that has sprung out of that tradition and which knows no boundaries (geographical or creative), jazz music, traditional music from countries all around the world, and of course music made by my colleagues in the film and video game fields.
But music can transcend genres and for me loving music certainly can, too.”

What role does music play in your life?

Maia: “Music is a means to connect with the world around and inside myself, as I see it. It has been a savior in very difficult times of my life, as a means to express myself, and its role has changed over time, but it is still a way of connecting with my inner self and the outer world. It represents the path I took to contribute to the world with my work; as a music creator, as a community musician, as a composer and as a performer. I believe that everything is music; vibrations, sounds, colors, resonance. And I am fascinated by the idea of music as a tool for inner and outer connection.”

John: “Music has by now permeated so many sides of my life that I can’t really imagine it without it. Listening to it, playing it, writing it, dancing to it, sharing it; it gives me an avenue to understand myself and others, to share and collaborate with friends and colleagues, to connect with people across culture, history, and ethnicity. Music is a beautiful thing that has immense power and I am grateful to have spent (and hopefully to keep spending) so much of my time around it.”

Which emotion do you think is most shared by museum visitors, in general?

Maia: “It depends on the museum. I think however that curiosity and the will to expand knowledge is something that is shared by different museum visitors.”

John: “I definitely have one in mind but I don’t think there is a word for it, unless there is one in German… I would describe it as a palpable feeling of broadening horizons, sometimes with a sense of mysticism, other times almost with a meditative ‘flavour’. A feeling that you are becoming bigger than yourself, of being conductive to the experiences, perspectives, history, and everything else contained in those rooms, ending up leading your mind to wonder as if you are outside of them.”

Do you believe that music can be the link of different cultures and identities?

Maia: “Totally. This is how I work with music, especially in my work as a community musician, where I run programs with people coming from different backgrounds and connecting with each other through their songs. Music is a very powerful tool for connection, mutual understanding and developing identities, and that deeply inspires my daily work.”

John: “Definitely. I think music is a great medium to capture and share nuanced emotion in a way that can be both completely open to interpretation and surprisingly specific. Of course, how people experience a musical piece depends (like so many other things) on where they come from, what they have grown up listening to, and a myriad of other things they may or may not have had been exposed to. But music is a language that somehow has the ability to directly interact with human emotions, so there is an incredible potential for people to share experiences through participating in listening and/or music-making.”

Euromuse is a project funded by the European Union. The views expressed are however those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the EACEA can be held responsible for them.