Braxton Performs 8-Hour Concert in Vancouver

Anthony Braxton, professor of music, was featured in a Jan. 27 edition of The Globe and Mail. In an article titled “8 hours + 60 musicians = 1 sonic genome,” Braxton explains how his 8-hour concert, Sonic Genome Project, held in Vancouver on Feb. 1, involved “synchronous starting points, target area space points, target strategic points. … geometric trajectories from the music system, all the way to implanted and target-space objectives.”

For the Genome, Braxton employed 47 “resident players” from the Vancouver area, a mixture of creative music veterans and high-school students. These players joined Braxton and 12 of his own musicians.

“Everything is written down,” he says in the article. “I have tried to build a model that is not mono-hierarchical, where one guy is in charge and everyone is functioning based on that model. …  the musicians are encouraged to develop internal surprises.”

This semester, Braxton is teaching Materials and Principles of Jazz Improvisation II and Special Studies in Contemporary Music.