Imperfectionism
My ongoing research is directed towards an eventual book publication exploring many different dimensions of creative collaboration in music, encompassing past, present and possible future, and focusing on collaborations I’ve participated in while also contextualising these in an overview of creative synergies in many areas of music.
One chapter, now uploaded to the Research Catalogue, is a case study involving documentation and discussion of the process by which Milana Zarić and I produced our composition grottesche, beginning from the ceiling frescos in the Uffizi in Florence (see illustration) and the 17th century multimedia artwork Atalanta fugiens compiled by Michael Maier. This led to the conception and realisation of a duo for harps and electronics which we first performed in March of 2025, and which was then developed over a period of months, in the course of a series of working sessions with the musicians of Ensemble Modelo62, into a composition for eight performers and video, which we premiered in December. The creative process was itself an improvisational composition, so to speak, combining planning and spontaneity in such a way as to suggest many possible pathways for future work as well as further developments of this one. Milana and I will present an excerpt from the duo version in the presentation.
