Ad Hoc: Why Improvisation Matters

Ad Hoc is a podcast about improvisation: in music, in other art forms, and in the lives and work of professionals of all stripes. It was started by us here at Ars Nova Workshop, a jazz/creative music presenter in Philadelphia. We’ve built decades-long relationships and ongoing conversations with the greatest musical minds—MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellows, Doris Duke and Pulitzer Prize award winners—who are all world-class innovators. And we’ve come to understand that improvisation is more than just a fortunate talent for jazz musicians: it informs the very world each of those musicians inhabits.  Through conversations with these world-renowned musicians and a host of others, we explore how improvisation affects their work, their creative lives, even their relationships. We also see how improvisation often leads to roads outside of music: visual art, movement, all the way to scientific study or martial arts. We use conversations with these world-class musicians as a launching point for considering the many facets of the phenomenon of improvisation: its history, development, cultural status, applications, and the science behind it and that it makes possible.Ad Hoc is produced by Ars Nova Workshop in partnership with Rowhome Productions.