Music forum April 26

Based on his recently completed research project Free Improvisation – Genre and Method, Michael Duch will show us the possibilities and consequences that lie in the strategies and methods of free improvisation.

Improvisation was definitely what divided the New York School in two, with John Cage and Morton Feldman having little regard for this way of making music, while Christian Wolff and Earle Brown tried to incorporate improvisation into their works. When Brown once told Cage in the 1950s about his work December 1952, in which he had intended to combine graphic notation and improvisation, Cage had replied: “Ahh… You're just going to find that everybody will play their own clichés.”

The English experimental composer, improviser and later political activist Cornelius Cardew attempted to find ways in which the so-called free improvisation merged with the composed. The purpose was precisely to be able to detach the performer from his or her conscious or unconsciously rehearsed musical clichés, so that they could create something new every time the music was performed. Starting from the work The Tigers Mind, Duch will lead us into the issues of improvisational music.

Welcome!

(1978) was born and raised in Trondheim and plays double bass. Duch completed his three-year period as an art fellow at the Department of Music, NTNU, in 2010, where he researched free improvisation and improvisation-based experimental music. He plays experimental composed music in the trio TILBURY/DUCH/DAVIES, free improvisation with the Norwegian quartet LEMUR, while in the solo format he does both. Duch has otherwise participated in over 30 releases in various formats with, among others, Tony Conrad, Patrik Fitzgerald and Mark Wastell.

What is Music Forum?

Music Forum is the Norwegian Composers' Association and NOPA's joint professional forum with the goal of creating greater awareness and engagement around composition and related topics within music. Music Forum is free and open to everyone.