Permanent Music Research Laboratory with Stefano Battaglia
The experience of musical improvisation is an extraordinarily valuable journey for any instrumentalist. It enriches the musician emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, and technically, creating a direct and privileged channel between the self and the musical universe. To achieve meaningful, objective results—expressive, formal, and aesthetic—the experience must be transformed into practice.
A workshop specifically dedicated to improvisation allows this practice to evolve into an expressive medium, a form of self-expression, and art, or to stabilize as a study method that enhances the quality and awareness of core musical activities such as interpretation and composition. On one hand, the art of improvisation functions as a means of communicating the deepest self through formal and narrative skills typical of composition—not merely as a methodological exercise, but also as a decisive performative gesture essential for any musician aspiring to musical manifestation and self-expression. On the other hand, improvisation can move beyond or expand its inherently irrational, primitive, and liberating aspects through a precise methodology that harmonizes compositional techniques with instrumental skills, allowing for spontaneous composition. This research journey seeks to formalize the concept of instant composition while preserving the syntactic structures and semantic capacities inherent in composition.
Improvisation as practice is the continuous development of an instrumental method that establishes a simultaneous connection between thought and action, aiming to define, on a psychological level, the inner distinction between essence and personality. Such practice enhances awareness of one’s talents and limitations, deepens understanding of various instrumental techniques, and produces greater expressive intensity and satisfaction.
In today’s musical landscape, it is crucial to (re)build the path of revelation and communication with one’s individuality, resolve profound questions of meaning, and achieve emotional maturity aligned with natural and consequential expressive intensity. This process unfolds on two levels and in two phases: first, self-resonance, focused on self-understanding; second, external revelation and communication. Improvisation offers a remarkable tool for experimentation in both traditional contexts, using pre-established ensembles and materials, and in informal settings of complete spontaneity. Achieving satisfactory results requires minimizing the element of chance, which often significantly affects objective musical quality.
It is therefore essential to cultivate rigorous discipline, immersing oneself in the restorative channels of music, in direct contact with the “alchemical ingredients” at the core of all music. The work simultaneously engages instrumental technique, acoustic physics, the psychic, emotional, and creative spheres, exploration of diverse musical languages, logic and rational analysis contrasted with creative potential, and the capacity for synthesis, imagination, intuition, and perception at varying levels of awareness and attunement.
Frequency
Nine annual workshops, held monthly from January to December.
Duration
Lesson lengths vary depending on ensemble type:
- Duo: 2h 30m
- Trio: 3h 30m
- Quartet: 4h 30m
- Quintet: 5h 30m
- Sextet: 6h
- Septet: 6h 30m
- Octet: 7h
- Ensemble: 8h
Solo piano – max 8 participants: 1h 30m per participant collectively (e.g., 4h 30m for 3 pianists, or 12h for 8 pianists)
Target
The courses are open to musicians of all levels and backgrounds, without stylistic limitations. Pre-academic and academic students (Bachelor’s and Master’s levels) may also participate. Admission is by selection, at the sole discretion of Maestro Battaglia.
Note: Students in the SJU three- and two-year programs may only participate after completing all exams in Maestro Battaglia’s Techniques of Improvisation course, except for recipients of the “Alessandro Giachero” Scholarship.