May 25, 2005
For Immediate Publication
New Organization for Improvised Music Launched
The International Society for Improvised Music (ISIM) has been created
as a support network for musicians, teachers, students, listeners,
scholars, critics, and industry professionals engaged in all forms of
improvised music. Membership programs are now available for
individuals and organizations online at www.isimprov.org or by
contacting ISIM at 734-277-2690.
ISIM arrives at a time when the unprecedented diversity of the musical
world calls for a heightened understanding of the improvisatory core to
musical creativity. The heading “improvised music” has emerged as an
overarching label that describes the increasingly difficult-to-categorize
musical expressions of today’s diverse culture. ISIM will cultivate
awareness of improvised music through performance, education, research,
and cross-disciplinary applications of improvisation.
According to ISIM Founder and President Ed Sarath, “We have entered an
extraordinarily exciting time in the history of music, when musicians
have access to an unprecedented expanse of influences and creative
strategies. Improvisation in one form or another is central to this
global musical synthesis, and may even suggest applications to fields
as diverse as business, education, science, communications, and
sports”.
The diverse backgrounds of the ISIM Board of Directors and ISIM
Advisory Council highlight the broad spectrum of the organization’s
goals. Internationally notable artists such as David Liebman, Geri Allen,
Oliver Lake, Pauline Oliveros, Jane Ira Bloom, Rufus Reid, Dee
Spencer, Bob Hurst, Archie Shepp, and Evan Parker are represented,
alongside highly regarded proponents of disparate cultural musics of
India, Latin America, and elsewhere—including Rui Carvalho, Ganesh
Komar, John Santos, Sam Shalabi, Wojciech Konikiewicz, and Karaikudi
Subramanian. In education the ISIM Advisory Council includes
internationally acclaimed scholars David Elliott and Bennett Reimer.
The ISIM Board of Directors consists of Ed Sarath, Maud Hickey, Betty
Anne Younker, Mitchell Gordon, Michael Nickens, and Sarah Weaver.
ISIM will promote performance opportunities for established and
aspiring artists through concerts, festivals, recordings, professional
chapters, and other activities. ISIM will promote education by making
available new pedagogical resources for the development of
trans-stylistic improvising skills, advocating broader improvisatory
training in academic music curricula, and establishing student chapters
at member institutions. ISIM will promote research through forums such
as discussion groups, conferences, and the ISIM journal. ISIM’s work
in illuminating improvisation as a cross-disciplinary model for
creativity will build on events such as Harvard Law and Business
School’s “Improvisation and Negotiation” conference, which united
colleagues in economics, social sciences, business, law, education and
the arts to explore the improvisatory core of creativity across fields.
Through its range of activities, ISIM will be a network that unifies
the musical community, and by extension seeks to make contributions in
broader professional circles, and society at large.
For more information and to join ISIM, contact:
International Society for Improvised Music
attn: Sarah Weaver, Executive Director
P.O. Box 1603
Ann Arbor, MI 48106 USA
(734) 277-2690
[email protected]
www.isimprov.org