Archiving the Moment: Improvisation and the Malachi Ritscher Collection is a panel discussion and performance that will take place in the Claudia Cassidy Theatre at the Chicago Cultural Center from 7-9pm on Friday November 15th. Curated and moderated by ethnomusicologist Will Faber, the panel will feature philosopher Bruce Ellis Benson, composer/improviser/educator Douglas Ewart, DJ Kimberly Seibel (Killing the Vibe). Performers will include pianist/ARPist James Baker, multi-instrumentalist Douglas Ewart, and bassonist/composer Katherine Young.
The evening will open with a live performance, followed by a moderated discussion based on the following prompt:
Inspired by Malachi Ritscher's recording and archival practice, this roundtable considers how acts of "collecting" resonate both in the worlds of jazz and improvised music—and beyond—into the many ways both individuals and communities create and curate the past and present through a variety of media and materials. Acknowledging that improvisation, musical and otherwise, while often regarded as indelibly a matter of the "here-and-now," can equally facilitate complex encounters with a past, this roundtable offers a space for three interrelated lines of dialogue: How do artists and collectors perform, create, or engage the past in the present? How do the temporalities of improvisation relate to these pasts and presents? What kind of archives, both actual and metaphorical, might artists, collectors, and audiences be creating for themselves or others?
Presented with the generous support of the Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation and in partnership with the Illinois Humanities Council.