JOKER(s) is a piece for 12 instrumentalists and an improvising soloist.
The soloist—who can be any instrument or sound device—is referred to here as the Joker, a symbolic figure that is unpredictable and ambiguous, inspired by card games. The Joker breaks the logic of the game while participating as an active element, but does not align with the order of the other elements.
During the piece, the Joker will have several opportunities to create free interaction with the music written and performed by the other instruments. In turn, the other instrumentalists in the ensemble mostly perform entirely written music, but at certain moments, they have more or less open parts, allowing them to improvise freely or based on instructions or pre-established materials.
JOKER(s) can be seen as a creation that seeks to make improvisation and composition coexist. Therefore, it is a piece about Freedom, which in its poetics evokes the unease of our times: a period framed by a decadent model, where machines dictate the pace of life, and where the unanswered questions of a resigned humanity resonate.
