Collaborations

About

METRIC is an international network of leading European higher music education institutions (conservatoires, music universities and academies) and the European Association of Conservatoires (AEC), dedicated to advancing higher music education through international cooperation in improvisation. It brings together institutions that work with improvisation at this level. It grew out of an initiative at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague (2011–2014) and an Erasmus+ partnership coordinated by the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre (2015–2018). Around twenty institutions take part today.

Every year a member institution hosts an Intensive Programme: four to five days of workshops, masterclasses, discussions and concerts. Students from across the network work in fixed groups that rotate between teachers from other institutions.

I started the relationship between ZHdK and METRIC in 2022, attended the Leipzig programme in 2023 as faculty observer and signed ZHdK's application for membership. Today I represent ZHdK in the network and sit on the Steering Group, where I take part in decisions on its direction. I also joined the task force that is redesigning the Intensive Programme.

Within ZHdK I am the link to METRIC: I pass on information to the department and the Working Group Improvisation, take part in selecting the students who join, and accompany them before, during and after each programme, including a reflection questionnaire. I have taught in the Intensive Programmes in Leipzig, Antwerp and Helsinki. The programmes are also a place of professional development for me: I observe colleagues’ classes and learn from teachers across Europe.

Timeline

• 2022Start of the relationship between ZHdK and METRIC
• Feb 2023Leipzig: faculty observer, three workshops
• Jun 2023Application for ZHdK membership
• Nov 2023Tallinn: invited teacher, exchange with the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre
• Feb 2024Antwerp: teacher, Steering Group, two ZHdK students
• Feb 2025Helsinki: teacher, Steering Committee, two ZHdK students
• Apr 2025Task force on the future format of the Intensive Programme
• Jun 2026METRIC Online Session: From Work to Relation

About

La improvisación libre en Latinoamérica was an online series of six sessions in 2022, which I initiated and coordinated with Dr. Silvana Figueroa-Dreher. It brought together more than twenty musicians, researchers and teachers from cities across Latin America, to make local scenes visible, encourage reflection and build cooperation in the Ibero-American region. The opening talk, on 12 October 2022, was hosted by the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia.

The series was funded and promoted by Ibermúsicas, a multilateral cooperation programme for music that was set up in 2011 within the Ibero-American Summits and has sixteen member countries. The Universidad de los Andes provided the logistics, including technical support for Zoom and YouTube, and all the sessions are on the YouTube channel of its Faculty of Arts and Humanities.

What came out of it

The encounters of 2022 led to further collaborations. Silvana Figueroa-Dreher, Wilfrido Terrazas, Alexis Perepelycia and I are behind the symposium Improvisar como práctica crítica at the 59th International Congress of Americanists in Medellín, Colombia (5–9 July 2027). Silvana Figueroa-Dreher and Wilfrido Terrazas coordinate it. The symposium asks whether there are practices or perspectives of improvisation specific to Latin America, and invites researchers and artists from music and other disciplines. The call for individual papers is open until 31 January 2027. The network has also reached other platforms: four of the eight speakers of the online chair Improvisar con Ñ (2025) at 17, Instituto de Estudios Críticos had taken part in the 2022 series.

La improvisación libre en Latinoamérica, online, 2022.

About

The Working Group Improvisation (in German, Arbeitsgruppe Improvisation or AG Improvisation) brings together lecturers from jazz, classical performance, church music, composition and electronic music, music therapy and music education. It is a space for exchange on teaching, artistic practice and higher education policy: how improvisation is taught at the school, where it sits in the curriculum, and how students can find their way through the many courses on offer.

Once a year the members meet on stage in the Spektrum concert The Art of the Unexpected at the Toni-Areal, the building of Zurich University of the Arts. Musicians who rarely share a stage play in changing small formations, put together on the day of the concert.

I joined the group in 2022, when I began teaching improvisation in the Bachelor programme in classical performance. Since then I have taken part in every meeting and in every Spektrum concert, and I bring the work of the European METRIC network into the group, where I represent the school.

Working Group Improvisation (Arbeitsgruppe Improvisation), Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), Department of Music. Head: Lucas Niggli.

Members (October 2026)

Joana Aderi, Stefan Aeby, Simon Bächinger, Risch Biert, Andreas Böhlen, André Desponds, Petter Eldh, Roman Glaser, Christoph Grab, Charlotte Hug, Andreas Jost, Manuela Keller, Diego Kohn, Friederike Lampert, Lukas Mantel, Lucas Niggli (head), Thomas Peter, Ruven Ruppik, Brigitta Schrepfer, Simon Schwaninger, Niko Seibold, Felix Utzinger, David Virelles, Chris Wiesendanger, Tobias Willi

About

Slide Ensemble is a quintet for open improvisation and new music, based in Zurich. It was founded in 2020 by Gemma Galeano, Ferran Gorrea, Marina Mello and me. Today the line-up is Gemma Galeano and Ferran Gorrea (saxophones), Lukas Mantel (drums), Frantz Loriot and myself (viola).

In 2022 the ensemble won first prize in the improvisation competition at the congress of the Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie in Salzburg. It has played at WIM and Das Institut in Zurich, Spazio Elle in Locarno and La Voire in Biel, and at festivals such as Ö-TON, Zürich Saxfest and Schönegg Varieté.

Slide is the performing body of Creaziun, the commissioning platform I initiated and direct. The first edition (2021–2022) brought four new works by Annette Schmucki, Christian Wolfarth, Katharina Weber and Mathias Steinauer. The 2026–2027 edition, with new pieces by Jacques Demierre, Jürg Frey, Lucas Niggli and Asia Ahmetjanova, tours Switzerland from December 2026. Videos of concerts and sessions with the ensemble are on the Performances page.

Slide Ensemble, Zurich, founded in 2020.

About

The Insub Meta Orchestra was founded in 2010 by Cyril Bondi and d’incise within Insub., the Geneva collective for experimental music. It has around fifty permanent members, and about thirty play at each concert. Its work is concerned with silence, extensive listening, low volumes and non-hierarchical relations, and with what it means, artistically and socially, to make music with so many people.

I joined in 2022. I do not take part in every project, but I am an active member and play when I am invited, in recordings and in concerts in Switzerland (Geneva, Stans, Zurich), France (Lyon), Norway (Oslo), Denmark (Copenhagen) and Sweden (Stockholm). I am credited on Acceleration (Insub.records, 2022), recorded in July 2022 at Le Lieu in the Vallée de Joux, with composition and direction by Cyril Bondi and d’incise.

Insub Meta Orchestra, Geneva, founded in 2010.

About

The Europa Meta Orchestra (E.M.O.) is based in Montpellier and run by the Maison des Arts Sonores. It brings together classical instrumentalists, composers, acoustic and electronic improvisers, and performers of digital and analogue instruments, working with amplified acoustic instruments, electronics and new instruments. It stands for experimentation, improvisation, existing repertoire and new works, and gives concert workshops for school children.

Since 2019 I have taken part in its projects: residencies at the Opéra Comédie in Montpellier, with concerts there, and a residency at the GMEA, the national centre for musical creation in Albi. I take part when I am invited to a concert, a recording or a residency.

Residencies and concerts

• Feb 2019First residency and launch concert, Salle Molière, Opéra Comédie, Montpellier
• Aug 2021Residency at the GMEA, Albi
• Jan 2022Concert for the Semaine du son, Salle Molière, Opéra Comédie: augmented viola, and an improvisation trio with Lucie Delmas and Wade Matthews

Europa Meta Orchestra, Montpellier.

About

The GONG-Improvisationsorchester belongs to GONG-Aarau, an association that has presented rarely heard music and supported young artists of the region for more than forty years. Ruedi Debrunner leads it, and it usually plays with ten to fifteen musicians from a larger group. It began in 2019 with a workshop on Soundpainting with Sabine Vogel (Berlin). Since then each year has had its own programme, built on gestures that shape how the players listen and react to each other, on graphic scores and, since 2023, on multi-layered video scores.

I took part in that first workshop in 2019 and have played viola in the orchestra since. Recent programmes I played in are Tutti Soli (2024), Klingender Rundgang (2025), a musical tour through a photo exhibition at the Stadtmuseum Aarau, and Team Play (September 2026), played in the museum’s exhibition «SPORT».

Programmes of the orchestra

• 2019Soundpainting workshop with Sabine Vogel and first appearance at the GONG festival
• 2020Akkordmaler, with the accordionist Hans Hassler
• 2021Quarter Notes
• 2022Concertante
• 2023Open Symphony
• 2024Tutti Soli
• 2025Klingender Rundgang
• 2026Team Play

Concerts I played in

• Dec 2023Open Symphony, Aarau, 16 December
• Dec 2024Tutti Soli, Aarau, 7 December, and Wohlen, 10 December
• Dec 2024hör+jetzt, Aarau, 13 December: trio concert with Ruedi Debrunner and Marco Käppeli
• Sep 2025Klingender Rundgang, Aarau, 6 September
• Sep 2026Team Play, Aarau, 12 September

GONG-Improvisationsorchester, Aarau, since 2019.

About

The quartet began as a meeting of four musicians: Lucie came from Lyon, Anna Paolina and Héctor from Strasbourg, and I from Zurich, to record together in Strasbourg. The group is credited as Free Improvisation Quartet on the album and also performs as Hikuri Quartet.

The quartet brings together musicians with very different backgrounds: contemporary music, Latin American folk music, baroque, jazz, noise and experimental music. Out of this rare combination of instruments comes music that is abstract and at the same time melodic, with a dense polyphony close to chamber and choral music.

The three sessions were recorded by LoFi Souvenirs in Strasbourg and released on 8 October 2023 by the Berlin label Elektramusic. The cover uses a watercolour by Graciela Arellano, Ondive, from the series Postales del Alma.

“Diego Kohn’s viola work especially gives it a unique character.”

Audion magazine (UK), issue 79

Album

• IFirst Moment · 41:50
• IISecond Moment · 17:44
• IIIThird Moment · 17:29

Recorded in Strasbourg, November 2021 · Elektramusic, 2023 · Artwork: Graciela Arellano · Layout: Luis Cisneros

About

The Ensamble Argentino de Improvisadores (EAI) was born in September 2012 at the First Argentine Meeting of Improvisation and Musical Composition in Villa Gesell. Around 55 musicians from many provinces worked for five days with Oscar Edelstein, Ernesto Jodos, Nora Sarmoria and Marcelo Moguilevsky, and the meeting ended with a concert for a full house. The ensemble brings together musicians from academic, popular, folk, tango, jazz and rock backgrounds.

It has recorded three studio albums: Acerca del paso del tiempo (2012), El amor es un árbol (2014, recorded on analogue tape and pressed on vinyl in Europe) and Concreto (2017, recorded across Argentina, France and Switzerland). It has played at the Casa de la Cultura of the Fondo Nacional de las Artes, at the Espacio Cultural Nuestros Hijos in the festival Nuevas Músicas por la Memoria (2013) and at the Feria Internacional del Libro in Buenos Aires (2017).

I am a founding member and play violin. In several concerts I have conducted the ensemble with a system of improvisation by hand signs, in which the music is shaped in real time. Today I take part only occasionally.

Ensamble Argentino de Improvisadores, founded in 2012 in Villa Gesell, Argentina.