Artists who can be described as “new” -those who change something- are no strangers to the attacks that their enemies have always launched and continue to launch against the new trends and views that they cannot understand. As in Art, so in Politics. There are always those who fight progress in all its forms and manifestations: they are the upholders of the “status quo”. (E. Satie, ‘Notas sobre la música moderna’, L’Humanité, 1919).

At Musikeon, music is culture. We believe in music - all music - and in its ability to express the concerns of the society in which it exists.

Classical music, that is classical music within the European tradition, has for centuries been part of the soundtrack of Western civilisation, and it continues to be one of our greatest treasures. But it currently finds itself at a very difficult juncture in its history: Symbolic of a whole way of thinking, that way of thinking has for some time been in a state of crisis.

Could this be the beginning of the end? We are convinced that it is not. But traditions can only survive if they keep moving, and Western classical music faces an enormous challenge if it is to keep its finger on the pulse of 21st century society.

“New approaches” is a laboratory for new avenues in interpretation - a laboratory that is teeming with projects, ideas and proposals for the future. Because the problem does not lie with Beethoven or Mahler, but how we approach them now and in the future.

The first step in its work was the cycle organized in Valencia in June, 2007. The second has involved creating a new look for the inauguration of our courses in 2007-2008: a collective performance of Erik Satie’s Vexations. In October 2008, we had between us the great Frederic Rzewski, for a meeting with our students and for playing two concerts that will be forever in the memory of those who had the opportunity to attend them, (rzewskienmusikeon.wordpress.com) and, since the course 2009-2010, New Approaches workshops are part of the training offer in Musikeon. Within this project, was born a duo formed by Diego Ghymers and Ángela López Lara. “Piano a cuatro manos y cuatro pies”(www.4hands4feetpiano.com), one of the most original and attractive initiatives of  today’s concert scene, and in April 2008 Mireia Vendrell made the double debut of Frederic Rzewski’s Cadenza with or senza Beethoven, an event that had no precedent in the world. More recently, in May 2010 we were visited by Uri Caine, tireless experimenter of contemporary piano, in a meeting dedicated to his amazing versions of the classics, and to his ideas, those that have turned him into the most unclassified pianist of today.