Expanding Horizons explores different ways in which musicians can approach 20th century Western classical music through improvisation. Through selected pieces from this repertoire and practical explorations together with participating musicians, a variety of approaches to creating improvisational frameworks have been explored. These include different approaches to working with scores and audio recordings, as well as different ways of negotiating musical structures such as melody, harmony, and form. A large number of improvising musicians, mainly from Scandinavian jazz contexts, have participated in these explorations and contributed with their perspectives and musical voices. The wide range of artistic methods is reflected in the musical results; while some pieces sound relatively close to the original version, others may – at first – seem more distant. This is also one of the aspects considered in the written reflection; how to negotiate the balance between aspects such as "fidelity to the work" and other performance values.

Peter Knudsen (NTNU - Norwegian University of Science and Technology) is a jazz pianist and composer based in Stockholm, Sweden, and a PhD fellow at NTNU in Trondheim. His albums explore themes as diverse as French Impressionism, Swedish Romanticism, as well as his own compositions inspired by nature, literature and life itself. These can be heard on his octet album ”Sagas of the Present”, released by Italian label CAM Jazz and reviewed favorably by Down Beat, All About Jazz alongside European magazines. He was also commissioned to write music for Stockholm Jazz Orchestra, resulting in the folklore-inspired suite “Nature Spirits”, with an album with the same name released by Do Music Records in 2019. Peter is also a member of Derupeto, an international quartet with members from Sweden, Brazil and Mozambique.

peterknudsen.com

ntnu.no/ansatte/peter.knudsen