How do you keep an ensemble growing all year?
Stuart Kauffman created the theory of the “adjacent possible” to describe the way complexity grows over time – from evolution to human tools to technology.
“What is actual now enables what is next possible, the adjacent possible.”
It’s miraculous to watch this happen in music-making, too. Every year, the things an ensemble can do in the first rehearsal creates new adjacent possible things to be acquired. As we acquire more, the ensemble accelerates and accelerates – in reading, music acquisition, tuning, ensemble sound, camaraderie, and so many other things.
The trick is to lean into the adjacent possible – the things we can’t do yet – rather than remaining in the area of the actual.