Improvisation as a connection: past and future

Contributors

Program

Improvisation was an essential part of European concert life in the 19th century, as numerous concert descriptions attest. This lecture will first examine how performers used improvisation specifically at the piano to prepare small numbers - for example for solo piano or songs - and above all to combine them with each other. Using a recent case study, it will then show how such techniques can be used by performers today to enhance the dramaturgy of their concert design and help audiences make connections between more varied and familiar repertoire. Drawing on the historical practice of improvisation thus opens up new perspectives for contemporary programming and reception.

Prof. Dr. Natasha Loges is Professor of Musicology at the College of Music Freiburg. Her research interests include 19th and 20th century music, gender and globalism as well as concert culture.

The lecture is part of the FZM lecture series "Improvising: Spontaneous Creativity in Art and Everyday Life".

In the summer semester 2026, the Freiburg Research and Teaching Center(FZM) is organizing a lecture series on the topic of improvisation from various specialist perspectives and facets. In addition to ten lectures by members of the FZM and guests, which will take place on Wednesdays in the lecture hall of the University's Musicology Department, events with improvisational-musical performances or cross-genre performances are planned on five Monday evenings at the College of Music, two of which are part of the FZM event series "musik + wissen".

Here you will find the short program (pdf) (this file is not barrier-free) with all individual dates of the public lecture series.

The Freiburg Research and Teaching Center (FZM) is a joint institution of the College of Music and the University campus Freiburg with the aim of mutual networking in music-related research and teaching.