The professional musicians and music educators of Tönstör visit school classes in pairs, from primary school to high school, and over a period of one or two months invent surprising pieces of music with the pupils, which resonate for a long time. The results of these experiments are then presented in the school auditorium or at public concerts to the great delight of the pupils.

Tönstör projects are not about the correct reproduction of an existing repertoire, but about the joint creation of unprecedented sound and music pieces. They should also tell something of the pupils' lives, their experiences and their own cultural histories. We offer a judgment-free, creative space beyond the pressure of marks and evaluations. Our preferred method is trial and error, not theorizing.

By collecting sounds in their environment and improvising on their own, the students experience how the whole world around us carries sounds within it. We are interested in environment and cultural sounds of all kinds. We play existing musical and percussion instruments of different traditions as well as electronic devices, self-made instruments and (un)ordinary everyday objects. By introducing the music of other cultures we open pupils’ ears and hearts to worlds of sound beyond their own borders.

Pupils without any previous musical education suddenly discover how natural creative music making and composing can be. Tried and tested instrumentalists experience how much further the possibilities of sound and percussion can be stretched. And time and again, theatre, dance and speech performances transform the final musical performance into an unforgettable experience for the whole school.