Both the Tabula Rasa seminar and the associated workshop will be held exclusively in-person, in Siena. 

Due to the current global health emergency, lessons will be held in space that allows for social distancing protocols to be maintained according to government recommendations.

Seminar “TABULA RASA. The Art of Improvisation”

The seminar is open to soloists of any instrument, to singers, and to established ensembles.

Ensembles that have been together for at least one year will be eligible for a special reduction in the Attendance Fee (reduced by 45% to €85 for each member).

Students from Siena Jazz are exempt from paying the Attendance fee (€155).

All registered students will be accepted as active students for the seminar. It is, however, requested that every student undergo an introductory interview with the instructor on the 19th of August (appointments will be made with the Student Secretary’s office). During registration, candidates must attach their Curriculum Vitae to the online application.

All students, including those coming from Siena Jazz, must pay the enrolment fee of €48.

Lessons will be in the form of workshops dedicated to research based specifically on approaches to improvisation, both traditional and those influenced by fusions and new music.

The methodological syntax will be based on direct musical experience, linked to instrumental action, different compositional techniques, and a wide range of creative and expressive forms. It aims to be an alternative complementarity to normal study courses based on representation, assimilation, and repetition of models and styles.

It adopts a performance method, which is committed to accompanying all musicians who have decided to make music their profession and art through their most difficult and decisive period. These musicians need an autonomous environment free of pressures from the circuit where they can experiment through continuous practice and research experiences, both individually and with groups, to reach a more complex yet more joyful, articulated and informed musical maturity.

The lessons will explore the following:
–  learning how to listen to and recognise musical material: the four parameters;
–  learning how to build and manage the creative process without established models;
–  examining the relationship between mindful listening and reaction;
–  defining different levels of autoresonance and musical perception;
–  developing a complementary instinct among musicians in their instrumental action;
–  building musical balances within a group more quickly;
–  acquiring the ability to recognise, develop and create a dialogue between thematic forms, accompanying narrative subjects and developing them semantically within morphological structures: the three narrative parameters.

Once the learning phase has been completed, there comes the moment to create an identity for oneself by dealing with the musical experience experimentally. This task requires delving deeply and is often put off indefinitely by musicians; it explores compositional awareness and develops technical/instrumental expertise to the same degree. The purpose is to negotiate the most dynamic future possibilities for the world of music through on-the-spot composition, experimenting with different ways of conceiving an improvisation performance.