This program reflects a true contemporary fluid musical practice that navigates between acts of composing, interpreting and improvising. Pianist and founding member of Ictus, Jean-Luc Fafchamps (Belgium, 1960) has been developing several long-term projects as a composer in which his taste for paradoxical constructions blossom into mutually referential pieces. In the string duet Insomnia he adopted a paranoid concept of form: a morbidly complex and obsessive system in the form of a chaconne that goes to the limit of what is feasible. Insomnia can be considered the tense fruit of an obsession and its rejection.

Ictus Guitarist Primoz Sukic (Slovenia, 1986) is also known as the second half behind Third Guy, a duo with percussionist Ruben Orio, where they push the boundaries between improvisation, programmed computer algorithms and composition. His solo work ‘Infinite Possibilities of a String’ recently premiered at CalArts, where he will start a doctoral research in the renowned performer-composer studies department under Michael Pisaro.

For Mutation, Panayiotis Kokoras (Macedonia, 1974), developed a new ultra-thin synthetic reed for clarinet using laser-cutting, 3D printing and casting technologies. The amplified clarinet delves into a series of timbre explorations using this novel reed. The electronic part serves as a bridge between the series of transformations from one sound to another.

In the early ’90s composer-saxophonist Anthony Braxton (Chicago, 1945) attended classes on Native American music at Wesleyan University, where he taught. More specifically, the classes centred on a post-colonial ritual of the late nineteenth century called Ghost Dance, in which different Native American tribes came together to make contact with their eradicated ancestors in hour-long circle dances or Ghost Dances. These experiences had a great impact on Braxton and were an important inspiration for what would become Ghost Trance Music. The huge score of Ghost Trance has to be considered as a toolbox. Performers can select and overlay different sub-compositions, adding improvisation, surprising each other, creating sub-groups of musicians etc. The music must be different every time.

Braxton's multi-hierarchical and transidiomatic 'super-formalism' is to be appropriated by the musicians in a playful spirit—with humour and fantasy. At the end of the long text that sets out the rules of the game "Ghost Trance Music", Braxton is careful to specify: “Have fun with this material and don't get hung up with any one area. [...] Don't misuse this material to have only "correct" performances without spirit or fun. [...] Each performance must have something unique. [...] Finally, I recommend as few rehearsals as possible so that everyone will be slightly nervous. (!)”