6th-7th October 2018, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
A collaboration between academics, musicians and arts practitioners, this two-day workshop examines a central issue of creativity in music and other arts: improvisation and spontaneity.
The idea of an aesthetics of imperfection is explored by jazz and improvising musicians, interpreters and composers in Western and non-Western music – plus practitioners from other art forms.
The contrast is between process and product, the unfinished and finished work, spontaneity and structure. The workshop explores the compositional aspects of improvisation, and the improvisatory aspects of composition.
All are welcome – free entry on the door.
For enquiries contact Samuel Horlor: s.p.horlor@durham.ac.uk
‘Struggle and Surrender: Process and Material in Painting’
Martin Mayes (improvising horn player and alphornist)
‘ “Stardust”: Seeing and Imagining What Isn’t There’
Corey Mwamba (improvising vibraphone player)
‘The Mistake as Material’
Elizabeth Baldwin Gray (architecture and design academic)
‘Architecture of Imperfection: Unfinished Sketches and the Sublime’
Annie Kloppenberg (theatre and dance academic)
‘Moving Principles and Principled Movements: Ethics and Embodiment in Dance Improvisation’
Graeme Wilson (free improv researcher and performer)
‘Cross Purposes: Imperfect Interactions When Improvising with Others’
Philip G. Robinson (author, editor, working gardener, and researcher)
‘Still Water Moves’
David Brown (improvising guitarist and composer)
‘Rarely Heard, Small Unwanted Sounds Form the Focus’
Dave Lloyd (rock guitarist and recording engineer)
‘Perfection and Authenticity: Editing Improvised Recordings’
Ilias Giannopoulos (music researcher)
‘Stockhausen’s Flexible Concept of the Musical Work: Between Improvisation and Composition’
Sun 7th October: Literary and Philosophical Society, Newcastle, NE1 1SE
‘The Aesthetics of Imperfection Revisited’
Pak Yan Lau (improvising pianist)
‘The Aesthetics of Possibilities’
John Snijders (pianist and music researcher)
‘ “That’s Not Freedom, That’s Taking License”: The Pitfalls in Interpreting Morton Feldman’s Graphic Scores’
Adam Fairhall (improvising pianist)
‘The Instrumental Impulse: Developing an Improvisation Vocabulary for Unconventional Keyboard Instruments’
Chris Corsano (free improv drummer)
‘The Present Imperfect’
Joe McPhee (improvising multi-instrumentalist)
Interview with Andy Hamilton
Kiku Day (shakuhachi Japanese flute player)
‘Learning Music Aesthetics through Imperfection: The Transmission of Shakuhachi Music’
Nate Wooley (improvising trumpeter)
‘Built from the Root, Ever-changing at the Bloom: The role of Imperfection in the Processes of Musical Phonology, Morphology, and Syntax’
Mark Hanslip (improvising saxophonist)
‘Processes and Outcomes: Generative Systems for Improvised Music’
Otto Willberg (improvising bassist)
‘Evading Manipulation and Control: Playing with Perspectives’