Program Notes - Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

About the program
George E. Lewis: Artificial Life 2007 (2007)
Created for the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra,
Artificial Life 2007 is a schema for collective improvisation—and
collective silence. No musical
material is prescribed; the principle is stimulus,
and the medium is verbal instructions that give
rise to radically different results, depending on
the performers taking part.
There are just two pages to these instructions,
which may be followed separately, in either
order, or together. Page 1 is to be read by musicians
acting individually or in groups, and is the
same for everyone: a set of sixteen words, some
of them suggesting kinds of sound (“smooth,”
“soli”), some having to do with how one soloist
or group might respond to one another (“end,”
for example, asks for an imitative response to
another group, starting immediately as that other
group has come to an end). Page 2 consists of
single words or very elementary directions and
proposes several groups (at least three) each
create a pathway either in relation to what is happening
or independently.
Lewis further suggests that moments of silence
will be needed—not empty silence, but a silence
filled with listening and decision-making as the
musicians prepare to contribute to the artificial
life that is their joint creation. “The success of the
performance,” the composer finally notes, “is not
so much related to individual freedoms but to the
assumption of personal and collective responsibility
for the sonic environment.”
© Paul Griffiths, http://disgwylfa.com
Steve Lehman: Impossible Flow
(2010, rev. 2012)
“In Impossible Flow, delicate and highly nuanced
spectral harmonies are integrated into a series of
meticulously crafted rhythmic environments. Expressive
timing, compound meter, rubato phrasing,
changing tempi, irrational rhythms, and instrumental
gesture are treated as a seamless continuum
designed to explore the psychology of musical
time and its connection to the elision of timbre and
harmony in spectral music. By imagining Impossible
Flow in this way, I hope to create an elaborate
sense of directionality and form that remains rooted
in the physicality of live performance and the
corporeal nature of urban rhythmic sensibilities.”
—Steve Lehman
Nicole M. Mitchell: Cave of
Self-Induction (2012)
“Before thought, before the birth of an idea, one
enters a dark cave of formlessness, of timeless
and endless potential. The cave is where all
minds meet, where all minds have met, in search
of Source, before sound, before self, before
manifestation’s beginning.”
—Nicole M. Mitchell
Tyshawn Sorey: Ode to Gust Burns
(2012; ICElab commission)
“Eight years ago, on a cold, rainy day in New York
City, the pianist Vijay Iyer and I decided to listen
to some music together at his apartment; we
listened to a CD containing four solo improvisations
by Seattle-based pianist/composer Gust
Burns, whose music was astonishingly beautiful.
Burns creates a unique dialogue between gesture
and rhythm in his improvisations. His approach
to piano performance opens up a world
of sound complexes, creating a fresh, relevant
language of improvisation. Burns’s work continues
to inspire me as an improviser and composer,
and Ode to Gust Burns directly deals with
my initial exposure to his music.”
—Tyshawn Sorey