Exposition

Being Free, Together: Instant Composition in a Contemporary Multi-Instrumentalist Context (2026)

Koen Joseph Gijsman
no media files associated
open exposition

About this exposition

This research investigates strategies for free improvisation, or “instant composition,” from the 1960s onwards. Instant composition is defined in this research as “working with concepts, structures, and limitations that stimulate interplay, coherence, and creativity in free improvisational contexts.” The research aim is to reemploy these strategies and find how they need to be adjusted to fit the contemporary jazz practice I share with Epoxy Quartet. Based on interviews, literature review, and practice-based experimentation, this research aims to develop exercises, instructions, or methods to co-create and co-evaluate expressive improvised performances. Although the strategies our quartet employs are rooted in an existing tradition of free improvisation – often atonal and cerebral music – we hold the artistic ambition to develop a musical idiom that is more lyrical and accessible. Therefore, the intended outcome of this research is a unique performance practice situated in the interstices between improvisation and composition, supported by well-developed methods to co-create and co-evaluate expressive improvised performances.
typeresearch exposition
keywordsInstant composition, Free improvisation, Bandleading, Interplay
date19/09/2024
published03/02/2026
last modified03/02/2026
statuspublished
affiliationCodarts, University for the Arts
copyright(c) Koen Joseph Gijsman
licenseAll rights reserved
languageEnglish
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/3014697/3014698
published inCodarts
portal issueCodarts Artistic Research Reports.
external linkwww.codarts.nl


Copyrights

nameKoen Joseph Gijsman - Artistic Research Report
copyright(c) Koen Joseph Gijsman
licenseAll rights reserved
usagespdf

Comments are only available for registered users.