ANARCHIC CIRCUMSTANCES AND COOPERATIVE EXPRESSION

Sunday Jun 29, 7PM @ 2640 (2640 St. Paul St.)

A two part concert/lecture presentation. First, SECOND NATURE, a one of a kind 20-person improvising orchestra directed by John Berndt performs, then a one-hour lecture after by John Berndt entitled "Thoughts about alternative social organization in light of improvised music."

SECOND NATURE is a large ensemble that confronts "the research frontier of improvised music" directly: the large group. The ensemble includes Chiara Giovando, Tom Boram, Kate Porter, Susan Alcorn, Melissa Moore, and many other well known figures of the Baltimore music scene, and uses highly specialized practice methodologies to open up new possibilities of large group improvisation, taking advantage of untapped possibilities for spontaneous 'composition,' for more varied forms of interaction than the 'blow outs' which often characterize large Jam sessions. The music is orchestral in power and range, but contains musical content that could be generated in no other way that is highly evocative.

In the lecture that follows, Berndt discusses some of his ideas about the relationship between the idealistic goals of democratic, communist, anarchist, and libertarian political philosophies, and the difficulty of achieving those goals (if they are indeed desirable) without new mental abilities and specialized cultures to enable them. Berndt is also a writer, a founder of several collectives (Normals Books, Red Room, High Zero, Experimental Food Collective), and also has had extensive personal involvement in the diverging worlds of politics, philosophy, and business.