MASTERCLASS & CONCERT | Recorder | Teresa HACKEL

INSTANT COMPOSING – Paths to Free Improvisation

This masterclass focuses on contemporary, non-idiomatic improvisation. The music is not bound by any particular idiom; instead, we allow it to emerge from within ourselves and seek to develop our own language.

How do we arrive at the music? How much freedom is beneficial and inspiring, and when do we need rules to help us find our way? What makes for a successful improvisation? We will explore these questions through various exercises and situations.

On the first day, we will actively engage with listening, examine musical material and practise making decisions whilst playing. We will learn the basic gestures of ‘Soundpainting’, a method developed by Walter Thompson in which an ensemble is guided through improvisation by a conductor using hand gestures.

On Friday, we will examine a work from the 1950s and its interpretation, and play pieces by Vinko Globokar. We will delve deeper into the soundpainting gestures and improvise both as a full ensemble and in smaller groups. In the evening, we will attend a concert. The trumpeter Franz Hautzinger and the recorder player Teresa Hackel will perform a freely improvised duo concert.

On Saturday, the participants themselves will decide which concepts and in which formations they would like to play during the final concert in the afternoon.

The masterclass is open to all recorder players, string players and other interested music students (pianists and percussionists by arrangement), up to a maximum of 25 musicians.