Trust in the Art of Free Improvisation
Through an investigation of trust in free improvisation, this presentation explores imagination, perception and transformation in the creative process. Drawing on Robert Burke and Andrys Onsman’s Trust in the Art of Free Improvisation (Routledge, 2026), the research adopts an interdisciplinary approach combining insights from sociology, psychology and performance studies, grounded in the experiences of improvisers and musicians performing on international stages.
The presentation examines how and why trust is essential to the creation of freely improvised music. Musicians must trust themselves, their collaborators and the improvisational process itself, where making something entirely new involves inherent risk and uncertainty. Trust enables musicians to deviate from established norms, explore the unknown and take creative risks, while mistrust can become a distraction from the immediate demands of performance. The presentation considers trust as both a condition for and a consequence of the choices made in free improvisation.
Prof Robert Burke
Robert Burke is an Associate Professor at Monash University and an internationally acclaimed improvising performer, composer and academic. His research explores jazz and improvisational processes, including the phenomenology of musical interaction, experimentation, identity, agency and gender. He has co-authored several books, including Trust in the Art of Free Improvisation (2026), New Directions in Musical Collaborative Creativity (2025), Perspectives on Artistic Research in Music (2018) and Experimentation in Jazz: Idea Chasing (2019). As a recording artist, he has released 17 CDs under his own name and contributed as a composer and performer to more than 300 recordings.
Monash University