Improvisation is hyper-everyday life!

Contributors

Program

Human action and interaction cannot do without improvisation, because acting with and reacting to my environment as a subject always requires situational adjustment. But what are we talking about when we talk about musical improvisation? What exactly happens when we improvise? And how do professionals do it? Based on many years of research into professional improvisation in music, I developed a model consisting of four dimensions: material, interaction, attitude and music. Together these shed light on the fascinating phenomenon of improvisation, which occurs in every culture.

Dr. Silvana K. Figueroa-Dreher holds a doctorate and habilitation in sociology and was a substitute professor of cultural sociology at the University of Konstanz between 2013 and 2016. She has been self-employed since 2016 and offers workshops and lectures in the fields of improvisation, creativity and cultural research, both theory-based and application-oriented.

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 can 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.