Experience Kjærgaard and the multilayeredness

Composer, pianist and associate professor Søren Kjærgaard completes his artistic research project ‘Multilayeredness in solo performance’ with a concert and a subsequent presentation at Rhythmic Music Conservatory, Wednesday February 28th from 17:00 - 20:00.

Composer Christian Blom and pianist and composer Jacob Anderskov will contribute to the critical dialogue following the presentation.

During his research, Søren Kjærgaard has looked into the multilayered and multidirectional potentials of solo piano improvisation. The work includes audio-visual documentation experimenting with different ways of listening and looking (back) into the creative process.

It is a highly explorative and experimental project that attempts to open up new ways of creating dynamic and dialogic circuits in the artistic practice by connecting the various stages of the process: the reflexive modes of play and the reflective modes before and after play. Kjærgaard has worked in-depth with questions of how one looks into these modes and how one keeps attuned to the nuances between them.

Developing the video keyboard

As a performer, Søren Kjærgaard is engaged in how he can open a differential field of potential within the natural limitations of the solo format. Through his own improvisational practice he researches on how this apparent solicity can be transformed into a dialogical situation of a manifold relations.

During his research he also began to experiment with audio-visual sampling leading to the development of a new instrument, the video keyboard, made in collaboration with RMC-student, Gianluca Elia.

Through his performative practice as both a solo pianist and video keyboardist, Søren Kjærgaard has worked in different ways with the mobility of form and flexibility of structure by converging composed elements from an embodied practice into an improvisational situation of a more responsive immediacy.

Albums and videos

The project has resulted in a series of published works that are manifestations around the main field of focus, solo performance, displaying different variations on the core questions of the research: How can one work with multilayeredness as a solo performer through a dynamic and dialogic interaction with ones own materials and ideas? And how can this be unfolded in a performative field between the compositional and the improvisational?

The works include three upcoming album releases, joined by a series of audio-visual Studies For Video Keyboard released as videos on Vimeo.

‘Multilayeredness in solo performance’ has been supported by the Danish Ministry of Culture grant for artistic research.