Improvisation Creative music-making in real time

What I found most fascinating about this concert, which I realised was for the most part improvised in the moment and had no set play list, was Cecil Taylor’s presence, his relationship with his instrument, with the other musicians and, above all else, with the audience. For me, this was an entirely new listening experience and it showed me new ways of expressing myself musically.

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In addition to the instruction in their main instrumental or vocal subject, they receive individual tuition in improvisation and further advance their skills in an improvisation ensemble.
We consider improvisation to be a foundational feature and condition of creative music-making: it’s an in-depth engagement with listening and musical interaction. 
Students learn to draw from their own vocabulary, to expand it and to use it spontaneously in collective music-making.

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for instance, new music, noise, electronic music and free jazz. The most important groups and movements include AMM, New Silence in England, Echtzeit-Musik in Berlin and various schools and approaches in Vienna, Japan and around the world.

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This includes learning different methods and strategies to spontaneously draw from an existing musical vocabulary, to expand it and, at the same time, to broaden the tonal range of one’s instrument. It’s therefore not about learning a stylistic language, it’s primarily an aural training.

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And there’s the Lucerne Improvisers Orchestra, which was founded in 2021: it’s dedicated to improvisation in large formations and a venue for BA and MA students from the Classical, Jazz, Music and Art Performance as well as Music and Movement profiles to make music together. There are several improv jam sessions per semester at the Knox Club, where students and lecturers spontaneously join each other on stage.
The Lucerne School of Music is also a member of the European Metric network, with master classes and workshops and collaborations with the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo.

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