Essay: Music, the City, and Theory

Music, the city, and theory
Christopher Dell

The American jazz legend Lee Konitz once said of him: “Dell’s music is like a swinging Schönberg.” In jazz, or rather improvised music, he is considered one of the most important vibraphonists of his generation – and that is just the tip of the iceberg: Christopher Dell, in a league of his own where productivity and versatility are concerned. Musical improvisation is the leitmotif that, alongside his music, also weaves its way through his numerous essays, lectures, teaching assignments, and art and research projects, in which he seeks to apply musical principles and practices to urban planning, for instance.

Dell’s career reads like an intellectual artistic odyssey that doesn’t appear to follow any set plan and nonetheless, or perhaps precisely for that reason, takes surprising turns. Like the way the music he creates with, among others, his trio ensemble DRA challenges the listener with its great complexity and complete unpredictability, but ultimately always seems to get its meaning across. Born in Darmstadt in 1965, he first studied Philosophy for a time in his home city, then went on to study Piano, Vibraphone and Composition in Hilversum, Rotterdam and on a scholarship at the renowned Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he graduated with magna cum laude. Alongside his career as a composer and jazz musician, which has seen numerous concerts, recordings and awards, he obtained a Master of Human Resources degree at the Kaiserslautern University of Technology (TU Kaiserslautern), taught at the Darmstadt Music Academy (Akademie für Tonkunst Darmstadt), founded ifit, Institut für Improvisationstechnologie (Institute for Improvisation Technology) in Berlin and produced numerous cross-disciplinary works, essays, and installations in the crossover area between music, architecture, art, philosophy and body techniques. He taught Architectural Theory at the University of the Arts (Universität der Künste) in Berlin and the Architectural Association in London. He has taught as guest professor of Urban Theory at Hafen City University (Hafen City Universität) in Hamburg and the University of Technology Munich (TU München). Last year he received his doctorate on organization management from the University of Duisburg-Essen (Universität Duisburg-Essen). And this list is not even nearly complete.

 

„Music, the City, and Theory“, in: outlook. building perspectives, Frankfurt a.M.