Tag Archives: improvised music

Cooplog #9 : A very brief view of blizzards and improvisation

Constance CooperText by Constance Cooper

Amidst snowstorm forecasts last February, a friend of mine was driving off for the President’s Day Weekend amateur string-quartet-playing fest, which is an annual reunion of devotees of the summer Chamber Music Conference at Bennington College.

The only concern my friend expressed about snow conditions was whether the people responsible for bringing all the string-quartet parts would be able to get there.
I thought, fine if they don’t! How wonderful it would be to improvise all weekend, night and day!

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Cooplog #15

Photo courtesy of Constance Cooper

Photo courtesy of Constance Cooper

Text by Constance Cooper (keyboards/vocals improviser and performance artist)

Quoting Sten Hostfalt (composer/improviser, microtonal guitarist, superb colleague) about the improvising life:
Free as a style and stylistic marker and/or a philosophy ? What is free ? How free is free ? is free really free ?
does it matter ? do we care ? well, either way we’ve done it for decades already so it most likely does exist.
Also we might find a clue in rehearsal ( yes freedom can be rehearsed ! ) the night before this event.
And the audience can hear/decide for itself at the concert.

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CD Review: Kali Z. Fasteau’s “Piano Rapture”…new works on piano

Kali Z. Fasteau CDArtist: Kali Z. Fasteau
Title: Piano Rapture
Label: Flying Note Rec
Genre: jazz/improv

CD Review by Matt Cole

Kali Z. Fasteau is an accomplished composer and multi-instrumentalist, having traveled all over the world learning and playing various woodwind and string instruments and absorbing the music of the many places she has lived and created. On Piano Rapture, she returns to her first instrument, presenting nearly an hour of spontaneous compositions for both solo piano and small ensemble. Her collaborators on this project include reed players Kidd Jordan, L. Mixashawn Rozie, and J.D. Parran; and percussionist Ron McBee.

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