Concurrent:exploring improvisation between performing arts practitioners

Member of the research team of a new network on interdisciplinary imporvisation. Reid School of Music researchers, Dr Graeme Wilson and Professor Raymond MacDonald, have been awarded £20,000 by the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) to develop a new research network on interdisciplinary improvisation from both practice-led and psychological perspectives.The Concurrent network will bring key researchers and leading improvisers together to share approaches and theoretical insights, apply psychological understandings to collaborative performance, and consider how performers share or construct meanings at the cutting edge of contemporary improvisation. Public events and online resources will inform and involve a wide range of creative improvisers and academics.

While performing artists increasingly create their most exciting work improvising with others, and psychologists have explored how this wordless interaction takes place in real time, there is little exchange of ideas between fields. This project aims to address this gap.