ImproVision – 16.11. Daily program

Irene Zandel

Marina Baranova
Marina Baranova was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and has lived in Hanover since the age of 19. As the daughter of a couple of pianists, she grew up in a world of classical music, jazz and improvisation. She began playing the piano at the age of five. After moving to Germany, she studied at the HMTM Hanover. After numerous successful competitions and debuts, she realized that a career as a classical pianist only expressed part of her musical personality. At the same time, she also remembered another talent that had already made itself felt in her childhood, in addition to absolute pitch: synaesthesia. In Marina Baranova’s case, it is the combination of sounds and colors that leads to creative explosions in her head. She returned to improvisation and composition. To date, she has released seven albums in which she combines classical music, jazz, minimal music and synaesthesia. Since spring 2024, she has been running her own music salon at Villa Seligmann in Hanover. The aim of this space is not only to listen to music, but also to reflect on it, discuss it and experience it in a comprehensive sense.

Irene Zandel

Prof. Markus Becker
Prof. Markus Becker has established himself as an outstanding interpreter of piano literature from Bach to the modern era and impresses with his versatility, both in classical music and jazz. He regularly performs at renowned festivals such as the Ruhr Piano Festival and the Beethovenfest Bonn and has worked with leading orchestras and conductors such as Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic. His recordings, including the complete recording of Max Reger’s piano works, have received numerous awards. As a professor at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media, he has been passing on his knowledge to a successful pianist and chamber music class since 1993.

© Iris Kloepper Photo Design

Ashley Hribar
Ashley Hribar is an Australian-born pianist and composer. He has built a reputation as a versatile musician whose repertoire encompasses world music, interdisciplinary art forms and a wide range of traditional genres. With a keen interest in contemporary aesthetics, he is the curator of numerous projects including Sound and Color in Scriabin’s Piano Sonatas and Magic Hands – Two hands, Two pianos. Ashley’s compositions are poly-stylistic collages, often using extended performance techniques, voice and electronics. In 2018 he completed his PhD at the University of Adelaide on the music of American composer Frederic Rzewski.

Rick Nickerson

John Mortensen
John Mortensen is a leader in the international rediscovery of historical improvisation. He performs frequently as a concert artist and masterclass teacher at colleges and universities worldwide and is renowned for his ability to improvise entire concertos in the historical style. He is the author of “The Pianist’s Guide to Historic Improvisation”, the world’s most widely used book in the field of historical piano improvisation, which is now used as a textbook at many leading conservatoires. He is the founder of Improv Planet, an online school of improvisation whose students include concert artists and conservatory teachers from around the world. Mortensen teaches historical improvisation at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and is a professor of piano at Cedarville University in Ohio.

Navina Neuschel

Noam Sivan
Prof. Noam Sivan is a pianist and composer and a pioneer in the revival of classical improvisation. He plays fugues and four-movement sonatas extemporaneously, leads orchestral and choral improvisations and collaborates with instrumentalists, singers, dancers and actors. His solo album Ambiro’s Journey has been described as a “new milestone in the development of improvisation”. Born in Haifa, Israel in 1978, Noam Sivan was Director of Improvisation at the Curtis Institute and taught at the Juilliard School. Since 2021, he has been a professor at the HMDK Stuttgart, where he heads one of the world’s first master’s programs for piano improvisation.

Marvin Balzer

Georg Thoma
Georg Thoma is a pianist, music theorist, piano improviser and piano teacher. He has been taught to play the violin, piano and organ since early childhood. After graduating from high school, he completed studies in instrumental piano pedagogy, music theory/aural training and artistic piano improvisation. He currently works as a full-time lecturer for music theory at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich, as an academic assistant for music theory and aural training at the University of Music Freiburg and as a lecturer for piano improvisation at the University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart. An artistic focus for Georg Thoma is piano improvisation in a wide range of styles from baroque, classical and romantic to jazz and new music.

All events on 16.11. are accessible with a day pass at a price of 40 euros. If you would like to visit the entire festival, you can book a festival pass here.

Tickets are available in the webshop of this website or by e-mail to karten@villa-seligmann.de.

Villa Seligmann cordially invites you to the second edition of the improvisation festival!

From November 12 to 16, international stars of the improv scene will once again be guests in Hanover and will present an extensive program of concerts, workshops and interactive events.

Musical improvisation is demonstrably a basic component of historical performance practice and a primary source of music creation. It exists in all styles and musical genres. As a philosophy of life, it stands for freedom of expression and form with instinctive, sensual and also intellectual approaches. In contrast to the musical interpretation of already composed works, improvisation is interactive and spontaneous: it enters into a creative exchange with the listener and opens up hitherto little-explored and little-known paths of communication. Beyond musical abstraction, the ability to improvise is a craft that combines special skills and characteristics.

With these guiding principles in mind, Villa Seligmann invites those interested in culture, creative people and curious concertgoers to have a lively experience in the creation of improvisation and to play an active role in shaping it. The festival is not a specialist conference, but an open space for creativity in which the boundaries between performers and listeners are conceptually and spatially dissolved. As a source of inspiration, the festival is aimed at all people who are looking for inspiration and new ways of interacting and who want to gain an insight into the world of unlimited musical possibilities.

The program consists of 10 concert encounters and 2 workshops. The performing artists are internationally recognized greats in the field of improvisation. In all events, the listeners play a decisive role in shaping the program.