In the case of improvising ensembles, where the latitude for personal input is an important concern and an artistic need for the members of the ensemble, the task of the composer composing the events is to strike the best possible balance between the things that are determined and the things that are left open-ended.
Composing for improvising ensembles means: If something specific needs to happen, it must be identified as precisely as need be; the things not identified remain exposed to everything that is instantaneous.
This is how the substantive concern of a composer with regard to what absolutely must emerge, on the one hand, and improvisers’ desire for open-ended and indefinite spaces in which the art of improvisation can unfold in living symbiosis, on the other, can coalesce to form a clearly designed flow of fulfilling events.
The arrangement of planned events is the dramaturgical conceptual design of an artistic landscape for the interactive, free flow of improvised actions and reactions.
The impact and utility, in other words: the quality of the plan – the score, as it were – is demonstrated by its productive clarity for the performers and is made manifest in the degree of success in realising the desired outcome.