The Gangan Series Workshop Lab is an improviser-and-composer workshop which explores the potential of graphic scores and playing in medium-to-large ensembles. Graphic scores’ emphasis on alternative procedures allows more flexibility and possibilities yet retains or reconfigures certain compositional devices.

Over the course of a week, participants learned the history of graphic notation and took part in various exercises that aimed to aid them in developing their own compositional strategies and notational systems. The workshop culminated in a collaboratively-composed graphic score to be performed at the concert, by selected festival musicians. 

The workshop ensemble also performed two other scores: Tad Ermitaño’s “Malaganito 1.0” — a video score that only partially specifies and loosely suggests moods and rhythms — and a piece by Ignaz Schick, a Berlin-based experimental musician who specializes in free jazz and improvisation.

Resident artists for the event were: Rembrant Vocalan, Mariano Batocabe, Mariah Reodica. Performers for the public concert were: Christian Dale Bazar, Erick Calilan, Burn Belacho, Laure Boer, Ignaz Schick, Rembrant Vocalan. Hosted by Ignaz Schick, with assistance from Erick Calilan.