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Jason Kahn: Open Space

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Artist: Jason Kahn (@)
Title: Open Space
Format: 12" x 2
Label: Editions
Rated: * * * * *
I already spoke about the distinctive concept of composition by American Zurich-based musician Jason Kahn on the occasion of his release "Sin Asunto" for the appreciated Portuguese label Creative Sources, which involved four musicians in the musical translation of Kahn's graphical scores that "hover in the gray region between composition and improvisation" in Kahn's words. Some aspects could draw a possible analogy with Cage's aleatory music principles, but Kahn prefers to move on the threshold between free improvisation - as players can decide the way of translating graphic forms - and a set of rules for choral dynamics: his graphical scores are based on two parameters, time and intensity, which have been drwn on horizontal and vertical axes respectively. This sort of scaly time-line is the only permanent feature, whereas the composer put the interpretation of hyphens, clouds, swirls, crosses, circles, triangles, vectors and other symbols in the hands of each performers, who just know when to play and the intensity level on respective task time without knowing anything about the juxtaposition by other performers. Compared to the above-mentioned "Sin Asunto", Kahn conducts more elements (nine players including himself, the appreciated Australian pianist Chris Abrahams, Laura Altman's clarinet, Monika Brooks' accordion, Aemon Webb's guitar, Rishin Singh's trombone, John Wilton's percussions and electronics by Adam Sussmann and Matt Earle) on "Open Space", which got commissioned and performed on January 19th, 2012 at the now NOW festival in Sidney, so that the way the score inclunces dynamics is even more engaging, even if a large number of players came under request of Jason himself due to the fact he had to perform in a larger place. The final result and its charming dynamics will keep listeners stuck on headphones for more than an hour.

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