... promotes performance, education, and research in improvised music, and illuminates connections between musical improvisation and creativity across fields.

Call for Proposals  

International Society for Improvised Music
Third Annual Conference
Lamont School of Music, University of Denver, Colorado USA
December 5-7, 2008

Improvisation and Identity: Discovering Self and Community in a Trans-Cultural Age

Keynote Address – Roscoe Mitchell
Featured Performers and Speakers – Joëlle Léandre and India Cooke

When Charlie Parker stated that “if you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn,” he conveyed, in his inimitable way, the capacity of improvisation to serve as a vehicle for integrating the totality of influences that shape personal and social identity.  From class, culture, economics, and ecology to gender, race, sexuality, and spirituality; improvising musicians spontaneously meld these and other aspects of their being in expressions that serve as both profound personal and collective commentaries.  In an era in which unprecedented levels of superficiality, alienation, and violence often overshadow a growing interest in creative and transpersonal development, and where an ever-escalating morass of data threatens to engulf a genuine cross-fertilization between disciplines and cultures; the importance of a creative vehicle for accessing and expressing one’s inner and outer worlds has never been greater.

Improvisation not only excels in this regard, it also—through the very moment-to-moment decision-making sequences that require individuals to penetrate beyond ordinary patterns of behavior—may exemplify the dissolution of provincial and nationalistic tendencies that divide communities and countries in our politically fragile world.  Improvisation, in fact, may be the ultimate lens through which the quest for self and community is revealed to be as much a collective as a personal endeavor.

The International Society for Improvised Music invites proposals related to the above theme for performances, papers, workshops, and other presentations for its third annual conference.  The theme may be construed broadly: it is compatible across wide-ranging approaches to improvised performance, it invites wide-ranging pedagogical applications, and suggests connections to wide-ranging, cross-disciplinary areas.  ISIM is committed to diversity in its programming.

Deadline for proposals: September 1, 2008
Notification date: September 26, 2008

ISIM Conference 2008 Proposal Form
Proposals accepted via email info@isimprov.org
Or by postal mail: ISIM, P.O. Box 1603, Ann Arbor MI, 48106 USA

As with prior conferences, applications will only be reviewed from current ISIM members.  New members may submit membership application with conference proposal.
Join ISIM

For more information contact Sarah Weaver, ISIM Conference Director sarah@isimprov.org 734-277-2690

Past Events

ISIM Benefit Event 2008
May 17, 2008  7:00pm-10:00pmEST
Lotus Music and Dance
Hosted by Thomas Buckner and the ISIM New York City Professional Chapter.
Featured artists and presenters:
Oliver Lake and Geri Allen, Thomas Buckner and Tom Hamilton, Dom Minasi, Ursel Schlicht and Robert Dick, TranceFormation: Connie Crothers, Ken Filiano, and Andrea Wolper, NYC Professional Chapter Ensemble: Julianne Carney, Chris Chalfant, Adrian Coburn, James Ilgenfritz, and Carol Purdy, Panel: Ed Sarath, Earl Howard, and Stephen Nachmanovitch, Environmental Dialogue by Pauline Oliveros, facilitated by Sarah Weaver

ISIM Second Annual Conference 2007

Building Bridges: Improvisation as a Unifying Agent in Education, Arts, and Society

December 14-16, 2007 at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois USA  

Featured Artists and Presenters: Jane Ira Bloom and Mark Dresser, Mazen Kerbaj and Michael Zerang, Oliver Lake with the University of Michigan Creative Arts Orchestra, Bennett Reimer, Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians

Download Conference Program Here

Download Conference Biographies Here

ISIM Inaugural Conference 2006

Time, Sound, and Transcendence: Forging a New Vision for Improvised Music Pedagogy and Practice

December 1-3, 2006 at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan USA

Featured Artists and Presenters: Stephen Nachmanovitch, Pauline Oliveros,

Janne Murto, Steve Coleman

Download Conference Program Here