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Advanced Musical Improv: No Protagonists Here with Frank Spitznagel and Jacob Horn
Begins: Jun 4, 2024
Ends: Jul 2, 2024
Price: $325
Class Description
This workshop for students who have completed the Magnet's musical improv levels is a chance to deepen your skills by playing with advanced structures that involve careful listening and slow play, with a primary focus on several varieties of monoscenes. Instead of protagonist-driven narratives, our focus will be on building ensemble energy, making character choices, sharing focus, and listening carefully - skills that will make you more confident in all sorts of forms. Prerequisite: completion of Musical Level 3 + instructor approval required
Applications due: noon on Mon, May 13
Notifications: Wed, May 15
Frank Spitznagel is the Musical Director at Magnet Theater and a piano accompanist who frequently plays for such improv groups as I Eat Pandas, Veal, The Made-Up Musical, Gusto, and many others. He is a graduate of the Boston Conservatory of Music, where he studied piano performance. His work can be heard on several studio recordings. Frank has composed for Comedy Central and the Aspen Comedy Festival. He accompanied Itzhak Perlman in an original jazz composition by Benny Golson at Lincoln Center. He also played the American premiere of The Hired Man Off-Broadway. He has been musical director for productions such as Nunsense (all incarnations), A Chorus Line, Chicago City Limits, and several original musicals.
Jacob started improvising in high school, switched to a cappella while studying Comparative Literature and Latin at Haverford College, and then moved to New York, where improv came back with a vengeance. His tendency to harmonize, syllabize, or beatbox to any music whatsoever—a residual effect of a cappella that musical improv has done nothing to help—continues to make him an unpopular guest at parties.
Since 2014, Jacob has studied and performed all over the city, including Magnet classes with Jon Bander, Armando Diaz, Elana Fishbein, Megan Gray, Louis Kornfield, Michael Lutton, and Peter McNerney. He performs regularly as part of Musical Megawatt and is half of the indie musical improv duo 4D Thieves (with Jennette Cronk), whose appearances include Pittsburgh's Steel City Improv Festival and the Tampa Bay Improv Festival. (Photo: Tim Tiebout Photography)
Full Session Schedule
Session Schedule*
-
Jun 4, 2024, 7:00pm - 10:00pm
at TBA
(at a studio space TBA in the vicinity of Chelsea, Manhattan) -
Jun 11, 2024, 7:00pm - 10:00pm
at TBA
(at a studio space TBA in the vicinity of Chelsea, Manhattan) -
Jun 18, 2024, 7:00pm - 10:00pm
at TBA
(at a studio space TBA in the vicinity of Chelsea, Manhattan) -
Jun 25, 2024, 7:00pm - 10:00pm
at TBA
(at a studio space TBA in the vicinity of Chelsea, Manhattan) -
Jul 2, 2024, 7:00pm - 10:00pm
at TBA
(at a studio space TBA in the vicinity of Chelsea, Manhattan)
Show Schedule*
- Jul 9, 2024, 8:30 PM
at Magnet Theater
(254 W. 29th Street) - Jul 16, 2024, 8:30 PM
at Magnet Theater
(254 W. 29th Street)
*scheduling subject to change