What is music? If an instrument is a tool with which we make music, is anything made with that tool then music? On the other hand, is any implement used in the making of music therefore an instrument—the enormous hammer in Mahler’s Symphony no. 6, cannons in Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture, and even the slow snapping of plywood in Saltwater Lung by contemporary composer J.L Marlor? Are the performers in "Here be Sirens” by Pulitzer Prize finalist Kate Soper “playing” the piano when instead of striking the strings to make them produce sound, they use their own voices, screaming into the instrument to create sympathetic resonance?

Extended Techniques, Abbreviated is an exploration of what instrumental performance can be, featuring a variety of pieces. Each performance will toy with our conceptions of what a musical “instrument” is and how that instrument is “played.” Through improvisation and composition, various objects and novel frameworks, Extended Techniques, Abbreviated interrogates the way we make music, approaching the process in novel ways.