Barre Philips & Gyorgy Kurtag Jr - Togetherness (2026) Hi-Res

In October 2014, to celebrate our anniversaries with Barre Phillips (he had just turned 80 and I 60), we played at the Budapest Music Center, on the stage of the Opus Jazz Club. This concert marked the beginning of our collaboration for the next decade. With him, I committed myself to getting improvisation recognized as an autonomous art and offering a framework for exploration and research.

In the founding charter of the European Centre for Improvisation (CEPI), set up by Barre Phillips, the emphasis is on improvisation in all areas of life, envisaged within a concept of collective social virtuosity, in line with the way it manifests in a multidisciplinary group. Collective improvisation is exceptionally open. It covers a wide spectrum of practices, from dance to fine arts, and includes professionals as well as amateurs. A new ensemble, nourished by its heterogeneity, is created by and for every occasion. Such an organic development of ideas, both individual and collective, is underpinned by the simultaneous elaboration of a common language. One of the consequences of this is that the outcomes of the choices made by each individual are unpredictable. Will they be rich in unexpected discoveries? No one knows.

These elements of spontaneity and collective intelligence did not prevent Barre and me from developing what we called a technology of inspiration. This consisted simply of meeting over a long weekend to prepare, with complete trust, the emergence of an event whose nature we never knew in advance, nor when it would occur, what its duration would be, or even whether it would take place. The aim, for Barre and for me, was twofold: that everyone should fully retain his freedom of experimentation while putting it at the service of a common project; that everyone brings the right element at the precise moment when it becomes necessary, and at the very moment it arises.