CMS Improvisers Orchestra• Kingston NY • Sept 29

In honor of Karl Berger, Peter Apfelbaum leads the Creative Music Studio Improvisers Orchestra featuring vocalist Ingrid Sertso. Audience is invited to the open rehearsal from 3-4pm, performance to follow from 4-5pm.

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)

REVIEWS:

Karl Berger has been a pioneer in large-scale jazz improvisation longer than just about anybody, which explains why his Improvisers Orchestra swings as hard, and interestingly, and often hauntingly as they do…Berger is an elegant and economical pianist, which informs how he conducts….Berger reaches deep into his bag of riffs and sends them through the orchestra, sometimes wafting, sometimes reeling, sometimes both….Like the best big bands, this crew use the entirety of their dynamic range. The ensemble weren’t often all playing at once, making those lush crescendos all the more towering and intense… built to lush, swinging swells with the phantasmagorical sweep of the Gil Evans Orchestra and the rough-and-tumble bustle of the Mingus bands. The camaraderie and warmth of the repartee between the orchestra and conductor – and among the orchestra itself – was visceral.

—Lucid Culture (OnlineBlog)

The suite-like performances have a warm, buoyant vibe issuing from brief folkloric-like motifs and the low-key, common-sense guidance Karl offers his players. They are mostly veteran musicians from avant rock and world music as well as jazz scenes, and can expand on simple themes paying utmost attention to dynamics and each other…..The collective’s intuited communication has attained a high point since weekly shows began last April 2011.

—Howard Mandel

The compositions of Karl Berger have a clear-cut destination, with a beginning, a middle, and an ending…..Surprisingly, much of Mr. Berger’s music isn’t exactly free form but draws on lush harmonies and a well-defined relationship between foreground soloists and background…..The music is comparatively easy on the ears because Mr. Berger also relies on woodwinds, reeds and strings (as well as the soothing voice of Ingrid Sertso) rather than brass.

—Will Friedwald, Wall Street Journal

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

Host or Publisher CREATIVE MUSIC FOUNDATION