INTERVIEW
Meet our resident: Sachit Ajmani
You call yourself a composer, pianist but also improviser. Could you speak a bit about how spontaneity and improvisation exist within your work?
Improvisation and composition have always been intertwined for me. As a child my first experiences with creative music making were improvising on the guitar in a band. Gradually that grew into writing songs, then producing an album, and orchestrating in a DAW. Eventually I started composing in the western classical idiom, which brought together my exploration and my piano education.
Years later at the conservatorium I discovered free improvisation, which allowed me to work in the contemporary, experimental idiom in a manner that felt more hands-on than designing complex and difficult scores. It also allowed me to experiment with media and forms that were difficult, or impossible, to represent in score-based music making.
A dialectic has taken shape within my practice: some projects involve more formally composed material, some more spontaneous improvisation. In both I seek freshness, authenticity, and good form.
You have started your residency at Intro in Situ, what are some things you are planning to do at Intro? What can we expect?
In the coming year I will be working on a music theatre piece for next year’s edition of Musica Sacra. In some ways this is a followup to my previous work REMOTE POSTING: it takes place in a sci-fi setting and involves characters undergoing intense experiences in near-solitude.
This time, however, I want to develop a number of works that belong together to accommodate the
Like I’ve always done at Intro, I would hope to do a few tryouts of various aspects of these works during the coming year. The feedback I gained during my earlier artist residencies at Intro have been crucial in the shaping of the final result and I look forward to getting inspiring responses this time round as well.
Tensions are rising globally. Whether that be climate urgency, the waging of wars or rising polarization as a consequence to inequalities. How does the state of the world influence your music?
A lot of the crises that have come to the fore now have been long in the making. It was nearly ten years ago that I tried to bring my social concerns together with my practice in music. Since then I have tried various approaches and I have ultimately realised that the responsible artist should always be developing a vision for a better society. The creative process needs to be grounded in this kind of thinking, so that the speculative realities and modalities one creates are not unintentionally advocating for more of the same but rather for a freer and fairer world. Our thinking is shaped by our collective cultural heritage and the more we are aware of that, the better we can shape our future.
Apart from approaching the creative process in such a manner, it is also important for artists to use their voice responsibly and add theirs to the chorus for what is right. The number of artists from across the world who have publicly voiced support for the BDS movement is a strong example.
Can you share with us some of your philosophies around how music can (or should) intersect with- and amplify community?
As has often been said, music is a community practice and has almost always been. In most cultures and throughout history, the audience has been a keen participant of the music-making process. In fact, the distinctions between audience, performer, and composer are blurred or do not exist in many cultural practices across the world.
However, even within the industry of makers and viewers we now find ourselves in, we have community. What we are increasingly describing as “networks”
actually point towards real communities of musicians and performing artists. These are the people who you may work with, people you might consult or talk to about art and music, people whose performances you attend to see what they are working on. I would say that it is vital to know the community you belong to and it is even more important to actively nurture it. Help people out and be gracious in accepting help; learn and help learn. Whichever way the world goes, your community will help you remain afloat and continue practicing your art.