Improvisation and ethics are everywhere. We improvise in so many areas—from cooking to sports to migration policy—that it often goes unnoticed. The same is true of ethics: as self-interpreting animals, we reveal ethical values in practices as diverse as democracy, empirical science, and punk rock. However, the role of improvisation in ethical processes is often overlooked; people are assumed to consciously and rationally adhere to ethical norms as more-or-less fixed rules.

The project (Musical) Improvisation and Ethics aims to develop an alternative understanding of ethical processes by bringing together academic and artistic research to reveal the improvisational qualities of ethics as they emerge in the living practice of experimental improvised music. Over thirty musicians from the Splitter Orchestra and the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra join forces for the brilliant finale of this three-year research project.