Reconstructing Music
Jennifer Bowerman, Sarah FitzPatrick, Dennis Karp, Erin Wegner, 
Larissa Falcioni, Kristen Hands, Craig Sparks, Kurt D. Wittstadt 
 
 

Reconstructing Music: This piece began when I looked around my musical community and saw people who were worn out, dejected, and insecure.  When did this happen?  When did we lose our joy?  When did we forget how wonderful music can be?  Why did this happen? How did we lose our passion, our commitment, our confidence, and our love for our art? How could I just sit there, and watch this? So I began composing; I started making musical choices. I wanted to put together a group of people for the purpose of making music. I wanted this group to make music spontaneously, and not to be tied to a score. I wanted to remind people of the power music holds. I wanted this group to be free of individual criticism; where the entire group was responsible for one another. So I started searching for my group.  I looked for people who would be open and committed to an improvised ensemble.  Some people were disenchanted musicians, some were gung-ho experimenters; everyone had something to contribute. And my role? I had five weeks to teach these people how to improvise, to overcome doubt and insecurity, to create a sense of community in the group, and to rekindle love for our art. In retrospect, I only taught them a little about improvisation, that music can be more and mean more than notes on a page if we commit ourselves whole-heartedly to the experience, and that openness and dialogue are fundamental to the health and well-being of a living musical tradition. But the group became so much more. We became that community, we set aside their insecurities and doubts, and we found that love and joy again.  We felt like we were part of something important; something larger than ourselves. In Reconstructing Music, we created ourselves anew.