Winter Ekphrasis is a series of four events held at Tempe Jets (for $10 a pop!) over the month of June.

Writers of all genres and levels of experience are invited to write live, in response to live improvised music, and listen to a short q & a with musicians about how they balance control and openness as they compose on the fly.

Here’s who’ll be playing each night:

Thursday June 8 ~ Jim Denley & Nick Ashwood
Thursday June 15 ~ MP Hopkins & Adam Gottlieb
Thursday June 22 ~ Solomon Frank & Josephine Macken
Thursday June 29 ~ Melanie Herbert & Romy Caen (Tone Bird) & Laura Altman

Where did this idea come from?

Ekphrasis used to be the poetic practice of writing a description of an artwork, but it’s evolved to become a way of writing in response to art, a way of writing in which the art is not only (or not even) the subject of a piece of writing, but can inform a writer’s voice, the way thoughts are formed, and can steer writing in directions a writer may never have anticipated.

For this reason I thought it might be exciting to program a series of nights where people can write in response to live improvised music. Think of it as being a bit like life drawing, only the model is sound, and the sketch is whatever writing comes out - a poem, a snatch of lyrics, a scene from a novel, a philosophical diatribe - whatever it is that you do, or need to do, or be surprised by.

Write with a pen in a notebook, write straight onto a laptop or device, write however you get your brain onto the page. At the very least these nights will be an excuse to hear some great music, hear improv musicians talk about how they enter their work ready to be surprised, and get some writing done in company.

These nights have been programmed in collaboration with Laura Altman, long term member of improvised music ensemble Splinter Orchestra and lifeblood of Sydney’s improvised and exploratory music scene.

Please come! Write! Hang out! Tell others!