Creative Music Foundation

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Creative Music Foundation News

Final Appearance This Season of Karl Berger's Improvisers Orchestra at The Jazz Gallery

Jazz Gallery, 290 Hudson Street, New York, NY

(Woodstock, NY) April 30, 2012: Karl Berger’s Improvisers Orchestra debuted Tuesday, March 20th as a New York Times Critics Choice at The Jazz Gallery, 290 Hudson Street, New York, NY. Following a critically-acclaimed eight-month run at The Stone in 2011, Karl Berger's Orchestra of 18+ professional string, horn, and percussion soloists continues to turn improvisational ideas developed in the 7:30 pm workshop/rehearsal into a fully formed 9:00 pm performance. Using his “Music Mind” concept, Karl introduces a new approach and experience of harmonizing improvised sound. International guest musicians for the performance May 1st are Mikko Innanen (alto sax), and Veli Kujala, (accordion) from Finland.

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Last Two Appearances This Season of Karl Berger's Improvisers Orchestra at The Jazz Gallery

Jazz Gallery, 290 Hudson Street, New York, NY

(Woodstock, NY) April 30, 2012: Karl Berger’s Improvisers Orchestra debuted Tuesday, March 20th as a New York Times Critics Choice at The Jazz Gallery, 290 Hudson Street, New York, NY. Following a critically-acclaimed eight-month run at The Stone in 2011, Karl Berger's Orchestra of 18+ professional string, horn, and percussion soloists continues to turn improvisational ideas developed in the 7:30 pm workshop/rehearsal into a fully formed 9:00 pm performance. Using his “Music Mind” concept, Karl introduces a new approach and experience of harmonizing improvised sound. International guest musicians for the performance May 1st are Mikko Innanen (alto sax), and Veli Kujala, (accordion) from Finland.

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Karl Berger's Improvisers Orchestra Launches New Series at the Jazz Gallery

Jazz Gallery, 290 Hudson Street, New York, NY

The orchestra debuts Tuesday, March 20th, 2012 and continues a bi-weekly Tuesday night series through May 15 at the Jazz Gallery, 290 Hudson Street, New York, NY. Following a critically-acclaimed eight-month run at The Stone in 2011, Karl Berger's Orchestra of 20+ professional string, horn, and percussion soloists continues to turn improvisational ideas developed in the 7:30 pm workshop / rehearsal into a fully formed 9:00 pm performance. Using his “Music Mind” concept, Karl introduces a new approach and experience of harmonizing improvised sound.

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The International Society for Improvised Music (ISIM) 2012

William Paterson University in Wayne, NJ

Festival/Conference, convening February 16-19, 2012, features a Keynote Panel with Karl Berger (founder and director, Creative Music Foundation/Creative Music Studio), and Douglas Ewart (Chair, Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians), moderated by Ed Sarath (President, ISIM). The panel's discussions focus on the interactions that took place between members of CMS and AACM during the 70s and 80s, and the repercussions that are still being felt today - AACM members, including Douglas Ewart, Anthony Braxton, George Lewis, Leo Smith, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and many more, regularly lead sessions at CMS as ‘Guiding Artists. The ISIM Conference on Saturday evening features Karl Berger conducting a festival concert with the 25-member University of Michigan Creative Arts Orchestra. A key component of this concert will be the CMS model of a site-specific open workshop followed by a complete orchestral performance.

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CMS Archive Project reactivates archiving and preservation program

Digitization of the extraordinary collection of concert tapes featuring the giants of jazz and world music recorded in the heyday of the Creative Music Studio continues the transferring and re-mastering of the CMS tapes. The Creative Music Foundation joins forces with the Columbia University Music Library for the archive project. Innova Recordings (Composer’s Forum) is collaborating with CMS in the formatting and distribution of excerpts from the CMS Archive, to begin this Spring.

The CMS Oral History Project begins collaboration with the Columbia University Jazz Studies Program

For the continued gathering and archiving of first person stories from the CMS participants and Guiding Artists, ensuring vibrant and vital histories of the evolution of jazz, world music and new music. This project builds on the foundation of networking and reporting of historian / author Robert Sweet.

Featured Video

Karl Berger's Stone Workshop Orchestra

Featured Quotation

“While we study our instruments and discipline our musical minds, our materials begin to surface... Finally, there can be the liberating experience that the material is not the point at all: we train ourselves to become instruments when the music can flow through freely, like electricity through a transmitter. We don’t know where it is going. We don’t even know what it is doing. We are only as ready as possible, keeping the tools sharp, keeping fine tuning, essentially empty so we can vibrate.”
Karl Berger