October 4, 11 & 18

Notations 21: Breaking the Boundaries

Notations 21: Breaking the Boundaries is a collaborative project presented by Chelsea Art Museum’s
The Project Room for New Media, Performing Arts at CAM, and CAM KIDS

 The Chelsea Art Museum presents contemporary thematic exhibitions complemented by public programs intended to foster critical thinking about today’s world. Through its exhibitions and programs, CAM offers unique opportunities to gain insight into cutting-edge visual, new media, and performing arts, all within an inviting, intimate setting. The Chelsea Art Museum is founded on the legacy of the abstract expressionist painter Jean Miotte, whose foundation is housed within the Museum. Many of Miotte’s artworks comprise CAM’s impressive permanent collection. Through his painting, Miotte strove to build a bridge between cultures and transcend national boundaries to form a truly international artistic language. It is in this spirit that CAM presents its exhibitions and programming.

 The Project Room for New Media is a collaborative program that brings together international artists, curators, cultural, educational, and corporate organizations. It is an incubator of new ideas, showcasing groundbreaking concepts in all art mediums, and the intersection of the arts through technology.

 Performing Arts at CAM is a highly acclaimed concert and dance performance series curated by Nina Colosi, featuring internationally renowned, as well as emerging, artists. In the spirit of Jean Miotte’s commitment to cultural exchange, Performing Arts at CAM presents a diverse range of genres and cultural traditions --­ classical and contemporary music concerts, sound art installations, dance and physical theater works by artists from around the world.

 CAM KIDS is an interdisciplinary education program, designed to facilitate youth’s access to, and understanding of, modern and contemporary art as well as to inspire the next generation of artists. Through CAM KIDS, Chelsea Art Museum seeks to open the minds of children and young adults between the ages of 4 and 16 by building critical-thinking skills and instilling a sense of creativity through a variety of art-related activities. CAM KIDS is grounded in the belief that an exploration of art fosters new ways of looking at things, teaches acceptance of multiple perspectives, and ultimately encourages new ideas.

Theresa Sauer, Musicologist, Author Notations 21

Jennifer Walshe
Nature Data

Voice and electronics: Jennifer Walshe

Nature Data is composed of over 200 different animal sounds, ranging from various species of birds, monkeys, dogs, cats, fish and dolphins to worms, maggots, flies, cicadas and frogs. It was originally commissioned for a performance in the Butterfly House in the Royal Winter Palace in Vienna.

Martin Sebastian Loyato
El Jardin del Poeta

Cello: Fanny Nemeth-Weiss, Electronics: Martin Sebastian Loyato

“El Jardín del Poeta (2007), is based on a poem I wrote in Spanish and English at a particular moment in my life. Though it functions as one integrated unit, the poem is in fact three poems in one. The three poems serve as the basis for the piece, and are manifest as a dialogue between a man – in the electronics - and a woman – the cellist. The male poem and the female poem weave together to create the third, complete poem, whose dialect structure is underscored by the interplay between the electronics and the cello.” –Martin Loyato

Douglas Wadle
Logos Prior Logos 4 + Logos Prior Logos 6

Violin: Andrew Tholl, Bass: Laura Steenberge, Harmonium: Tashi Wada, Spoken word: Douglas Wadle

Logos prior Logos, no. 4 with Logos prior Logos, no. 6: Logos prior Logos, no. 4 consists of a ground and several transparencies, two or three of which are to be arranged according to rules derived from the formal logic statements of the ur-score, Logos prior Logos, oil on canvas, score for performance, and which govern the performance of musical formulae printed on the ground. Logos prior Logos, no. 6 is a text piece in which those same formal logic statements are used to create rules for the editing of two texts together, in this case the rules, themselves, and the original natural language statements from which the formal logic statements of theur-score were derived.

Bruce Friedman
O.P.T.I.O.N.S. (Optional Parameters to Improvise Organized Nascent Sounds)

Flute: Ellen Burr, Cello: Isabel Castellvi, Violin: Eric Clark, Bass Clarinet: Phillip Everal, Clarinet: Jason Mears,Guitar: James Moore, Trumpet: Bruce Friedman

"OPTIONS is a process designed to encourage musical creativity through improvisation. It utilizes a collection of graphic musical notation symbols which may be interpreted and organized in any way the musicians choose. For this rendition, the ensemble will create unified sonic tapestries with overlaid improvised solos."

Ellen Burr
InkBops

Flute: Ellen Burr, Bassoon: Sara Schoenbeck, Percussion: Andrew Drury, Soprano: Adrian Coburn

InkBops, a deck of cards with directional ink lines that loosely denote pitch, volume and character, can be put together in a multitude of ways to create many individual parts in an improvised structure. Tonight’s performance is a rondo form interspersing the cards’ realization with improvised canons.

photo by Adzi Jasari

William Hellermann
Music Sweeps Up

Flute: Karl Kraber, Clarinet: Daniel Goode, Brush & Dustpan: William Hellermann

William Hellermann's Music Sweeps Up is from his extensive collection of pieces known variously as Visible Musics, Eye Scores or Still Lives. All the works from the series involve everyday objects on which a musical score is meticulously notated. The performance often involves the sculpture as an active ingredient in the performance as this work does.

Daniel Goode
Stamping in the Dark

“I am the performer with everyone else, performers and audience. With our eyes closed ("...in the dark") we count the tempo together out loud, then mentally, stamping on our own count of "one." The stamping does not stay together. We get an arhythmic percussion orchestra, with the floor as a big drum!” –Daniel Goode

Will Redman
Book Solo

Percussion: Will Redman

“Book is a collection of 98 graphic compositions. Each is rendered in black ink on a sheet of white 8.5x11 inch paper. The compositions represent extensions and extrapolations of conventional music notation. Book is available for interpretation (however radical) by any performer(s) in any place at any time in any part for any duration”. - Will Redman

Katherine Young & Jonathan Zorn
Untitled for Bass, Bassoon and Electronics

Bassoon: Katherine Young: Double bass and Electronics: Jonathan Zorn

This piece is the second in a series of collaborative transcriptions between Katherine Young and Jonathan Zorn, in which, working from a recording, they graphically re-notate an earlier piece of theirs. This time the composers passed the score back-and-forth long distance for 6 iterations (3 each), building up a transcription and then excavating and defining a new piece from the sedimented layers.

David Means
Folding Music II for solo wind instrument

Wind controller and live processing: David Means

“Folding Music II for soloist is from a series of three-dimensional scores which combines traditional and graphic notation into folded segments which the performer can use to maximize his/her instrument's extended tonal resources and performance techniques.”

Anthony Ptak
Insistentia.08

Copper pipe, Ekphonetic Instrument, Theramin Antenna: Anthony Ptak

“Insistentia.08 is a composition written for any instrument, object, or action. It should be performed without any sense of rhythm or metered time. Performers should not listen to, nor respond to anything going on around them. Decisions should be forthright, made in spite of everything, including any interference, or disruption. When an incident takes place, it is far more important than what takes place. The performance is labor. If a performer becomes tired, this is part of the labor. Be on time. Pay attention or a tension may collect its debt. What does it mean to insist? To stay upon: to lean upon: to rest: stop or stand still: to pause as would speak no more: to persist: to continue: to enforce: to labor earnestly: to pursue diligently to abide fast and firmly: to endeavor: to provoke or solicit”. - A.J. Ptak

Stuart Saunders Smith
Transitions and Leaps

Percussion ensemble: The Sylvia Smith Percussion Duo - Sylvia Smith and Ayano Kataoka

Transitions and Leaps is about moving from one category of information to another, by either a gradual transition or a sudden leap. The first task of the performers is to choose four categories (A, B, C, and D) of actions/sounds that can be modified. Some examples of categories are walking, reciting a text, xylophone rags, wearing hats, playing Bach on the piano, serving tea. The score makes use of ideograms that symbolize a task to be done while making the transition or the leap. These are modifications that apply to any of the performing arts, for example: higher, slower, imitate, change the speed, etc. Performers work together over many weeks or months, by improvisational trial and error, eventually coming up with a performance that is repeated verbatim with each performance.

Meet the Composers

Will Redman is a composer, improviser, and educator. He has a BA from the University of Maryland at Baltimore County, an MA from the University of Southampton (England), and a PhD in composition from the University at Buffalo, where he was a Dean’s Fellow and adjunct lecturer. He has studied percussion with Tom Goldstein and Kevin Norton; composition with Stuart Saunders Smith, Michael Finnissy, and Jeffrey Stadelman; and computer music with Cort Lippe. Mr. Redman has taught classes in music theory, composition, and music history (including Rock ‘n’ Roll, Punk, and Hip-Hop) and was the initiator and facilitator of OpenLab, a monthly free improvisation workshop in Buffalo sponsored by Big Orbit’s Soundlab and the Open Music Foundation. Some of Mr. Redman’s recent projects include a drama for solo pianist, Wilderness and Self-Sufficiency, the first act of which was premiered by Ian Pace at June In Buffalo 2005; Eyes and Ears: Sound Needs Image, a gallery exhibition at the Carnegie Art Center co-curated with Joanna Raczynska and featuring the Open Music Ensemble’s interpretations of moving graphic scores made by film and video makers; a sound installation, Book: Speaker Ensemble, featuring contributions by members of the OME; 10th Lesson, a film/video/sound collaboration with Joanna Raczynska, which has been screened in Buffalo, Karlsruhe, London, and Baltimore; and Book, a collection of graphic compositions to be performed in any part, by anyone, anywhere.

Jonathan Zorn is a composer/sound artist/performer from Middletown, CT. He likes to make sounds using his voice, double bass, accordion, modular synthesizer, and computer. His compositions involve systems of interaction that exceed the control of any single participant, creating surprises for performers, audience, and composer. He has studied with Alvin Lucier, Anthony Braxton, Ron Kuivila, and Jon Barlow. Mr. Zorn recently finished recording a CD of solo bass compositions. The pieces on this recording range from memorized structures that explore his personal approach to the instrument, to complex notated pieces that involve structures based on recursion and reorganization of standard thought patterns involved in music. A large part of Mr. Zorn’s work thus far has been to deconstruct structures, anything from pressure gauges to musical compositions to myself, and reconstruct them, testing the limits of recognition and the possibilities of new forms. This area has been the ground for new combinations and organizational possibilities.

Composer and bassoonist Katherine Young writes acoustic and electro-acoustic music, often using open forms and expressive, non-traditional notations. Katherine improvises, performs new chamber music, and plays with rock bands. Projects past and present include: Anthony Braxton's Falling River Quartet, Architeuthis Walks on Land with Amy Cimini, slyo with bassist Nat Slaughter, Wilde Turkey, Michael Pestel's ensembles, the trio Civil War, Jason Ajemian's Who Care How Long You Sink, and Roommate. She is a founding member of contemporary chamber music collective Till by Turning. Katherine collaborates with the likes of Emily Manzo, Adam Sonderberg, Jessica Pavone, Jonathan Zorn, Carol Genetti, James Falzone, Andrew Lafkas, Andrew Raffo Dewar, and others. She studied bassoon performance and comparative literature at Oberlin College and Conservatory. She completed her composition masters at Wesleyan working with Anthony Braxton, Ron Kuivila, and Alvin Lucier and is currently living in Brooklyn.

David Means was born on the same day the sound barrier was broken. He studied architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana where he participated in the original (1967) "Music Circus" event staged by John Cage. After compulsory military service in Vietnam, he returned to Illinois and the formal study of music, integrating aspects of invented notation into sculptural scores and performance installations for a variety of architectural and environmental settings. His music has been presented at such places as the New Music America Festivals, (Minneapolis, Hartford,Houston), Dance Theater Workshop, Experimental Intermedia and the Roulette Performance Series, (New York City), and the Stuttgart Graphic Music Festival. His graphic scores, installations and performance systems have been exhibited and presented by the Walker Art Center, IRCAM (Paris), Documenta IX (Kassel), the Xi An Conservatory of Music (China), Het Stroomhuis (Holland), Logos Foundation (Belgium) and the Arts Council of Great Britain. He is a three-time recipient of the McKnight Composer Fellowship and has received fellowships and grants from the Bush Foundation, the Minnesota Arts Board, the Jerome Foundation's Composer Commissioning Program, and Meet the Composer, Inc. He has taught music and performance art at the University of Illinois, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and the MacPhail Center for the Arts. He is currently an Associate Professor of Media and Fine Arts and producer of the Strange Attractors Festival of Experimental Intermedia Art at Metropolitan State University.

Anthony Jay Ptak is an artist and composer who has studied under Tony Conrad, Paul Sharits, Lydia Kavina, and Herbert Brün, and had technical consultations with Robert Moog, and he spent time with composer John Cage in 1991 at the North American New Music Festival in Buffalo, N.Y. He performed at the First International Theremin Festival in 1997, and has been a guest artist at the historic Experimental Music Studios directed by Scott Wyatt at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 2000 to 2007. Mr. Ptak was appointed visiting researcher at UIUC in 2001, and taught sound for new media artists in the School of Art and Design until 2007. He has given presentations, designed site-specific compositions, and performances on the theremin, invented instruments, and electro-acoustics at Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS), School of the Art Institute, Chicago Cultural Center, St. Louis Art Museum, Krannert Art Museum, FFMUP Princeton University, Issue Project Room, Millennium Film Workshop, Media Lab Madrid, Calart Actual LaGranja, Roulette Intermedium, The Kitchen, IMEB Bourges, Miguel Abreu Gallery, and Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. He is a founding member of the New York Theremin Society. An inviolable auto-didacticist, he uses simple means to produce complex results. Anthony Ptak currently resides in New York City.

Stuart Saunders Smith (born 1948 in Portland, Maine, USA) is a confessional composer who focuses on revealing in his music the most personal aspects of his life, in the belief that the revelations of the particular speak to the universal. Stuart Saunders Smith’s music is performed regularly on an international basis. He has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council, and the Pittsburgh Film Forum, as well as the Hartt College of Music Distinguished Alumni Award, and a Percussive Arts Society Citation for Distinguished Editorship. Stuart Saunders Smith’s music is published by Sonic Art Editions and is recorded on 11 West Records, Centaur Records, Opus One Records, oodiscs, Cadenza, BV Haast, and GAC Sweden. He has authored two books: Twentieth Century Scores, Prentice-Hall; Words and Spaces, University Press of America; as well as many articles published in Perspectives of New Music, Percussionist, IS Journal, Percussive Notes, Ear Magazine, etc. Stuart Saunders Smith has been on the faculty of the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Darmstadt Musikinstitut (Germany), Percussion Workshop Poland, the University of Maryland at Baltimore County. Residencies include University of California -San Diego, Yale University, Documenta 1992 (Kassel, Germany), the University of Gothenberg (Sweden), and the University of Akron. The Music of Stuart Saunders Smith by John Welsh is published by Excelsior Music Press, (New York, NY).

The Sylvia Smith Percussion Duo, founded in 1998, is a women’s percussion duo centered around music that integrates percussion, spoken language and theater. Sylvia Smith is the founder, owner and editor of Smith Publications/Sonic Art Editions, publishers of serious American art music. She is extremely rigorous in her selection of music and therefore her publishing house is looked to as a leading source of new American music. The recipient of six Paul Revere Awards for graphic excellence, her publications are thought of as particularly handsome editions. Her scholarship includes publishing several articles on music notation, and curating many concerts of John Cage’s music. As a percussionist, Sylvia Smith has performed at Merkin Hall in New York, the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, and with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. She tours North America with the Sylvia Smith Percussion Duo. Her performances are recorded on oodiscs and Eleven West Records. The recipient of numerous honors, Dr. Smith was awarded the American Music Center Letter of Distinction in 1988. Ayano Kataoka recently became the first percussionist to be accepted into the Chamber Music Society Two residency program in New York. She has appeared with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble at Carnegie Hall, given a debut recital at Tokyo Opera City Recital Hall in Japan, and performed with Emanuel Ax at Lincoln Center. More recently, she gave the US premiere performance of “…As If time Would Heal By Its Passing” by Stuart Saunders Smith at the 2005 Percussive Arts Society International Convention. A leading marimba specialist, Ayano Kataoka is a graduate of Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, the Peabody Conservatory, and earned an Artist Diploma degree from Yale University. She is recorded on Respect Records. She describes her approach to percussion performance, “I think of percussion performance as essentially theatrical. I am particularly drawn to compositions that involve the whole person, using standard percussion instruments along with spoken voice, singing and acting, and elegant props.”

photo by Adzi Jasari

Ken Silverman Speaker
Topic - John Cage

Kenneth Silverman is Professor Emeritus at New York University, where he taught American literature. His books about the history of the arts in America include A Cultural History of the American Revolution; The Life and Times of Cotton Mather; Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance; HOUDINI!!!.; and Lightning Man: The Accursed Life of Samuel F. B. Morse. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he has received the Bancroft Prize in American History, the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, the Edgar Award of the Mystery Writers of America, and the Christopher Literary Award of the Society of American Magicians. Currently, he is writing a biography of John Cage.

Keren Rosenbaum
Inbetween

Reflex Ensemble Members,

Violin: Olivia De Prato Cello: Reenat Pinchas

Inbetween is written for Violin and Cello, both reacting to pre-recorded soundtracks. The soundtracks are played through earphones during the performance and heard only by the performers – each performer hearing only his or her own soundtrack. www.ReflexEnsemble.com

Victor Adan
The Draftmasters

Computer and two Penplotters: Victor Adan and Jeff Snyder

The Draftmasters is a media art duo formed by VÌctor Adan and Jeff Snyder. Using custom-built software and hardware, The Draftmasters control antiquated pen plotters, originally intended for engineering and architectural drafting, to simultaneously create real-time drawings and sound. While robot arms apply pigments on paper, the work of motors and solenoids inside the plotters is made audible using electromagnetic transducers. As sounds collide, visual patterns emerge...

Joan La Barbara
Circular Song

Voice: Joan La Barbara

Circular Song was inspired by the circular breathing technique used by wind players. In adapting the technique for singing, I chose to vocalize both the inhale and exhale, designing a circular mirror-image graphic score that displayed the directionality and breath changes on a progression of descending and ascending glissando patterns. The repeating patterns, broken at specified points, progress through a series to the mid-point figure, an ascending set of inhaled and exhaled multiphonics (double-stops for the voice), returning in reverse order to the beginning figure. Circular Song is included on the double CD-set Voice is the Original Instrument/Joan La Barbara: Early Works (Lovely Music LCD 3003) and was one of three compositions on the 1976 LP (RVW 2276) of the same title on my self-produced label, Wizard Music. On the cover of that LP, myphotograph is surrounded by the graphic score for Circular Song.

Daniel Schnee
Chollobhat

Tenor Saxophone: Daniel Schnee

Chollobhat is a meditation on human nature, utilizing Persian quartertones and techniques from Japanese Noh theater music as mediated by the graphic score. This performance is dedicated to the mothers of American soldiers serving in Iraq.

Malcolm Goldstein
Hardscrabble Songs

Hardscrabble Songs for violin-voice solo as reflections on the USA with four songs beginning with the house I live in and those without, the hysteria of stock markets, living on the street and "oh can you see"; as all for in these times".

Chris Chalfant
Looking Through Trees

Soprano saxophone: Joe Giardullo,

Percussion Ken Yamazaki,

Prepared piano, voice and ocarina: Chris Chalfant

Looking Through Trees by Chris Chalfant is a visual and sonic interpretation of the feeling of joy and tranquility while lying on the ground taking in the different shades of green, the depth of filed and the luminosity of the light shining through the swaying leaves in the slight breeze.

Meet the Composers

Keren Rosenbaum is a multi-faceted composer, video artist, and interdisciplinary creator and performer. Born in Israel, 1970. A prolific composer and talented flautist from a very young age, Ms. Rosenbaum studied with renowned Israeli composers Arie Shapira and Leon Shidlovski during her studies at Tel Aviv University. She continued developing her distinctive style at the Royal Conservatory, The Hague, where she studied composition and electronic music with Giljius Van Bergeijk Diderik Wagenaar, Roderik de Man, Clarence Barlow and Louis Andrissen. After directing and producing "New Voices", the first interdisciplinary festival in Israel, she founded the body that would become the main vehicle for her musical and artistic vision – the Reflex Ensemble, a unique collective of classical musicians (including players from the Israeli Philharmonic and the Tel Aviv Opera), jazz musicians and actors, as well as lighting, sound, photography and video artists, from Israel and Europe.  The Reflex Ensemble embodies the vision of “the new orchestra”, which challenges the old-school classical music tradition in its focus on performance, openness to new technologies, incorporating lighting and sound artists as equal members, and choosing not to stage its performances in concert halls. Ms. Rosenbaum’s work with Reflex, as well as with other acclaimed performers, have established her as a prominent force in the Israeli and European contemporary music scene. In recent years, Rosenbaum’s music has been performed by the Czeck Philharmonic Ostrova, the Israeli contemporary ensemble Musica Nova, the Maarten Altena Ensemble, and others.

Victor Adan - “I have been interested in music, visual arts, and computer programming since childhood. My first musical experiments took place during the late 1980s, when my parents acquired two new pieces of furniture for our home: an upright piano and a personal computer. Both machines fascinated me, and I spent many hours pressing the keys of these two wondrous devices. After a few disappointing first years in college, I discovered the uncompromising music of composer Julio Estrada and, in 1997, I joined his deschooling "Musical Creation Lab" at the Universidad Nacional AutÛnoma de Mexico. Then I shifted focus. In 2005 I earned an MS in media technology and digital communications from MIT, working with Barry Vercoe on such things as music structure modeling, automation and classification. I am currently pursuing a DMA at Columbia University in New York City. I typically spend my days composing, writing software and teaching robots how to draw.” –Victor Adan

Jeff Snyder is a composer, instrument designer, electronics performer and sound artist working in New York City. His works, which often employ combinations of acoustic, electric, and electronic instruments, have been performed by a variety of ensembles, including the Timetable Percussion Trio and L'Ensemble Portique. In  addition to his concert works, he often collaborates with artists from other mediums, most frequently with the modern dance group Fivefour, the choreographer/video artist Nora Stephens, and the visual artist Gandalf Gavan.  Jeff is an active member of the Wet Ink Ensemble, the analog synthesizer duo exclusiveOr, and the pen-plotter duo The Draftmasters.

Joan La Barbara, composer, performer, sound artist, has been hailed as "one of the great vocal virtuosas of our time" (San Francisco Examiner). Her multi-layered compositions often utilize her signature extended vocal techniques, garnering awards including DAAD Artist-in-Residency in Berlin, Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition, 7 NEA grants, and numerous commissions.  Recent recordings include "ShamanSong" (New World) and "Voice is the Original Instrument" (Lovely Music.  "73 Poems" was presented in The American Century Part II: SoundWorks at The Whitney Museum. Interactive media performance work "Messa di Voce" premiered at ars electronica 2003.   La Barbara composes sound scores for film, video and dance, including a score for voice with electronics for a "Children's Television Workshop/Sesame Street" animation, broadcast worldwide since 1977. Live Music for Dance commissions include scores for “Fleeting Thoughts” and “An American Rendition” (Jane Comfort & Company) and “Deserts” (Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company). La Barbara is currently composing an opera. http://www.joanlabarbara.com

Daniel Schnee is a saxophonist / composer based in Toronto who has performed internationally with a number of American Music, and Grammy Award winning musicians. He has studied with several renowned Arab and Japanese masters, as well as with jazz legend Ornette Coleman. After several years of freelance composing in Japan while undertaking Soto Zen monastic training, Daniel went on to become the woodwind and jazz history instructor at the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music in Jerusalem. Currently he is pursuing doctoral studies in ethnomusicology at York University.

Malcolm Goldstein, renowned composer/violinist, has been active in the presentation of new music and dance since the early 1960's, in New York City, as co-founder of the Tone Roads Ensemble and as participant in the Judson Dance Theater, the New York Festival of the Avant Garde and the Experimental Intermedia Foundation. Since then he has toured extensively throughout North America and Europe, presenting solo violin concerts and appearing as soloist with new music and dance ensembles. His "soundings" improvisations have received international acclaim for having "reinventing violin playing", extending the range of tonal/sound-texture possibilities of the instrument and revealing new dimensions of expressivity. Collecting the thoughts and perceptions that have evolved from his past twenty-five years of music making and observation of the natural world, Malcolm Goldstein offers a very particular view of improvisation: "the musician as one centered in the process of discovery, unfolding moment to moment, that is realized in the gesture of enactment/sounding." Through articles, previously published in various periodicals, interspersed and embellished with excerpts from journals, interviews, letters, and music scores, the author touches on social, political, educational, aesthetic and economic considerations as he explores the "expression of the wholeness of our humanity."

Chris Chalfant is a composer, director, pianist, vocalist, artist, author, choreographer, poet and spatial alignment consultant; Noted for her unique and broad style as a creative artist, Chalfant has explored various mediums of expression with openness, connection to form, sense of design and search for truth. Her work has been performed around the globe and recorded for over twenty years. In 2006 she published “Book of Unstandards”, a collection of thirty years of her short works. Chalfant’s biography was entered in the “Encyclopedia of the 21st Century, Vol. I” published by Maximillien de Lafayette. In 2003 she was one of nine solo pianists from around the world to perform in Prague for the Mezinárodni Festival Jazzového Piana. Chris Chalfant was a member of the Longy Improvisation Ensemble, directed by Anne Farber from 1985-1992, and co-led the Lifetime Visions Orchestra with Joseph Jarman from 2001-2005. Chris Chalfant studied piano and African Music at Kent State (BA in Music ‘83), Jazz and composition with George Russell and William Thomas McKinley, as well as an independent study in “aleatoric” music (non-jazz improvisation) at New England Conservatory (MM ‘88). She also studied improvisation with Connie Crothers from 2001-2004.