Free Improvisation

Gastvortrag & Lecture Performance Richard Barrett

Once we accept that any sound can be a musical sound that can be combined with any other sounds to make a musical composition, it becomes possible to compose and perform through the process known as free improvisation. While other methods of improvisation rely on an agreed framework within which spontaneous musical actions and reactions can take place, in free improvisation that framework itself is brought into being spontaneously, and continuously renewed. How can we connect sounds to one another to create expressive musical structures without relying on traditional sonic relationships such as those of harmony and counterpoint? How can we talk about this music in a way that doesn’t use traditional categories inherited from notated music? What are the potential roles of digital technology in facilitating new ways of thinking about composition and improvisation? These and other questions will be explored
in the workshop throughpractical activities, beginning with abstract exercises and working towards theperformance of a collectively improvised composition.
 
10:00 - 11:00 Lecture/performance Richard Barrett (public)
13:00 - 17:00 Workshop (internal)
18:00 - 19:30 Final concert (public)
 
Richard Barrett (Swansea, 1959) is internationally active as composer and performer, teaches at the Institute of Sonology in The Hague and is Professor of Creative Music Research at the University of Leiden. His work encompasses a range from free improvisation to intricately-notated scores, and from acoustic chamber music to innovative uses of digital technology. Current projects include a major new cycle of works for the ELISION Ensemble, with whom Richard Barrett has been working regularly since 1990, and new works for Musikfabrik and Soundinitiative. Ongoing performative collaborations include with Paul Obermayer (in FURT), Evan Parker, and several other improvising ensembles such as SKEIN (with Achim Kaufmann, Frank Gratkowski, Wilbert de Joode and others) and Colophony (with Jon Rose and Meinrad Kneer). Richard Barrett’s principal composition teacher was Peter Wiegold. His work as composer and performer is documented on over forty CDs, including seven discs devoted to his compositions and nine by FURT. In October 2020 he set up the digital label STRANGE STRINGS together with harpist Milana Zarić. His books Music of Possibility (2019) and Transforming Moments (2023) are published by Vision Edition.