The Improviser's Classroom

“From the call → free fall → response, the structure of The Improviser’s Classroom unsettled me in all the right ways. Cocreation percolates through the book, from collaboration to the collective, the commons, community, comping, complicity, cooperation, coping, the copresent, cosmovisión, and the looming presence of COVID-19. Many chapters describe the experience of teaching improvisation with aching honesty and hope. All show that worldmaking–which means staying with the trouble–is the work of improvisation, especially in what feels like end times.”–Deborah Wong, Professor of Music at the University of California, Riverside, and author of Louder and Faster: Pain, Joy, and the Body Politic in Asian American Taiko“With chapters by many of the key thinkers in Critical Studies in Improvisation and critical pedagogy, this exciting and innovative collection does not shy away from tackling difficult topics such as COVID-19, racism, sexism, colonialism, and homophobia in the education setting. The contributors offer a rich discussion of the potential of improvisatory practices to make for more collaborative, non-hierarchical, and transformative teaching and learning spaces. The Improviser’s Classroom is required reading for anyone interested in the intersection of improvisation and pedagogy.”–Sara Ramshaw, Professor of Law and Director of Cultural, Social, and Political Thought at the University of Victoria

Daniel Fischlin is Professor in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph. He is the founding Director of the Critical Studies in Improvisation Graduate program (MA/PhD) at the University of Guelph, as well as the co-founder and Artistic Director of the community artspace Silence. The author or editor of over thirty books, he is the coeditor of the recent publications, Sound Changes: Improvisation and Transcultural Difference and Playing For Keeps: Improvisation in the Aftermath.

Mark Lomanno is a jazz pianist, ethnomusicologist, and faculty member in the Musicology Department at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music. They are former Chair of the Society for Ethnomusicology’s Improvisation Section and founder of “The Rhythm of Study,” a public forum that celebrates jazz musicians’ work in the arts, academia, and community activism. A former Mellon Foundation and Consortium for Faculty Diversity fellow, Lomanno has also been awarded several fellowships for his ethnographic and performance work in the Canary Islands.

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