ABSTRACT
Five people around a grand piano. Playing inside it as well as on the keyboard: an electric toothbrush, together with beaters and pieces of paper; a mandolin; an untuned fretless cumbus played with a free-floating broken string; a glockenspiel; a melodica. Discussing, imagining, and weighting possibilities about how to perform a series of free improvisations based on verbs borrowed from Georges Perec’s Penser/Classer (1985): thinking about taxonomy as both a constraint and an opening. Considering the basic parameters of what is to be done. Then, delving into free play: moments of care, effortless effort, deep concentration, moments of testing, moments of clarity and control, and moments of letting go; moments of failing; moments of sharing; moments of slow pursuit of subtle independent pathways, seemingly disconnected. Is this music? Maybe.
