CMS Improvisers Orchestra • Kingston NY • Feb 22

In honor of Karl Berger, Aliya Ultan & Peter Apfelbaum lead the Creative Music Studio Improvisers Orchestra featuring vocalist Ingrid Sertso. Audience is invited to the open rehearsal from 3-4pm, performance to follow from 4-530pm.

KB on the Improvisers Orchestra:The idea of the Improvisers Orchestra is to create a sound together without knowing what happens next. This is a very high art. For those who are new listeners or players, the aim is to harmonize improvised sound with the fine tuning of our sensitivity to the tuning of the sounds we are making.There is a beautiful expression in music: When we learn to play a piece of written music and we finally put the music sheet away, we are now playing "by heart". This is what we are doing here in the widest sense of this expression - playing by heart. We are born with an innate sense of direct spontaneous play that is not directed by the head. We are not using our head, but our heart. -Karl Berger

CMS philosophy: The ability to give your own original sound was and is the beating heart of CMS and music. CMS is not about teaching; it is about supporting and empowering to bring out what is in you already. -Ingrid Sertso

Visiting Artists at the Creative Music Studio in the 1970s have pioneered an innovative way of blending the sounds of improvising musicians in orchestral settings, guided by the first director of CMS Karl Berger. Many concepts of improvisational orchestras spread from there to New York and around the world. CMS cultivated the original concepts in hundreds of concerts featuring mostly veteran musicians from avant rock and world music as well as jazz and classical scenes in the greater New York area.

CMS and its first artistic director, Karl Berger, have pioneered an innovative way of blending the sounds of improvising musicians in ensemble and orchestral settings. The groups are comprised of leading professional string, horn, reed, vocalists and percussionists who are conducted in live improvised performance. Using Karl Berger’s core ‘music mind’ principles. performances typically start with a rehearsal that is open to the public in which the conductor works with the group on sound, dynamics and deep listening, enabling audiences to listen in. Audiences can see how the conductor shapes the sound and feel of the group and how it inspires the musicians to harmonize and blend orchestral sounds in an improvisational setting. This ensemble of extraordinary improvising soloists explore original themes as well as melodies from the world’s folk traditions and compositions written by legendary improvisers such as Don Cherry or CMS co-founder and guiding spirit, Ornette Coleman. The emphasis lies on musical ideas that arise spontaneously during the performances. The groups can be small ensembles such as a septet or expanded to a chamber orchestra or larger 30 piece or more orchestras. For the 2022 season of concerts in Kingston NY the CIO will have 15 outstanding soloists (brass, reeds, strings, flutes, percussions and voice)

The orchestra’s sound is born of the moment, founded by the players’ instincts, skill and need to emote—and it’s then organized by Karl’s artful hand and facial expressions. Sculptor-like, he molds and shapes the aural force emanating from this collection of brass, reeds, strings and percussion set before him. Berger has developed an incredible language of his own; never losing sight of the musicians’ individuality,he plays the orchestra. This orchestra has proven itself as a wonderfully expansive vision of what a ‘big band’ could be. From early September till this writing (December 2011), the line-up has shifted in membership with a solid core of regulars and a series of guests who are passing through New York while on tour. Each time I have seen new faces, heard new accents and reveled in new and exciting musical concepts.

—John Pietaro. NYC Jazz Record

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