Category: Music

In improvisation, duos are a sort of conversation. Big bands are something like a game of follow the leader. In a sense, improvising trios are a combination of both. They retain much of the conversational intimacy of a duo through a kind of shared leadership of conversation that rarely if ever occurs in the classic quintet format, or even in the quartet. Many things can happen in trios that would be virtually impossible in another format.

Among Elena Dubinets’ many brilliant ideas is her vision of a showcase of new music from around the world, where audiences could meet and discuss the music with the actual composers themselves. That brilliant idea that has become the Icebreaker series, which has moved from Russia through the Baltic, across land to the Caucasus and America and now, this year, to the Mediterranean.