Flying Pooka!: Newfoundlanders Florian Hoefner and Dani Oore embrace the risks and joys of improvising

Published Oct 12, 2023 • 4 minute read

Florian Hoefner, left, and Dani Oore, right, are the Newfoundland-based improvising duo Flying Pooka. Photo by Joe Chase Photo by Joe Chase

Posing for the camera, Newfoundlanders Florian Hoefner and Dani Oore look like a study in contrasts.

Hoefner stands on the left, hands in his pockets, playing it cool and casual. Beside him, Oore is frozen in mid-air, seemingly levitating above the rocky ground, with a wild expression on a face framed by a mop of curly hair. He looks like a creature about to claw you.

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Staged though it is, the image says something true about this musical odd couple, which will visit the University of Ottawa next Wednesday to give an entirely improvised evening concert. That afternoon, Hofener and Oore will also give a workshop to shed light on their creative process and spark the creativity of other musicians.

“Our personalities are quite different,” says Hoefner, a Juno Award-winning pianist. “Maybe this is what makes us such a good fit, both personally and musically.”

“We may seem like opposites,” says Oore, a Juno-nominated saxophonist and vocalist. “But these moments are also about exploring and developing trust… we bring out different qualities in one another.”

The duo, which just released its debut recording entitled The Ecstasy of Becoming, bills itself as Flying Pooka!, nodding to a fantastical creature of Celtic folklore — a wily, shape-shifting trickster creature of uncertain intentions. (Perhaps that’s what Oore is imitating in the photo.)

“It is known to appear unexpectedly in different shapes or as different animals and to take people on wild rides,” Hoefner says. “We felt that this characteristic made it a good fit for our music.”

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The two accomplished musicians are both in their early 40s and are separate, recent arrivals to St. John’s.

Hoefner studied jazz in his native Germany and then New York before relocating to Newfoundland in 2014 after his wife, clarinetist Christine Carter, was hired as a professor at Memorial University. Oore moved to St. John’s after he started a post-doc position in 2019 at the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation, which is affiliated with Memorial.

Not long after Oore arrived, he and Hoefner began playing together, taking leaps into the unknown rather than relying on sheet music or compositions to ground their music-making.

Hoefner, who leans to more technical explanations, says he was already deep into giving fully improvised performances before he met Oore.

“I love the freedom. It is wonderful not to be bound by any pre-existing rhythmic, harmonic or melodic structures and to be able to just follow your instinct and ideas to create music in the moment,” he says.

“You really have to be able to leave your comfort zone and just let your mind and body do the work without getting involved with your frontal cortex too much. It’s this risk and letting go that can make it so thrilling.”

Oore strikes a philosophical note. “Improvising — or a willingness to integrate an unforeseen event into a positive outcome — seems like a critical survival skill in life and in any domain you work in,” he says.

“One broad appeal of spontaneous creativity for me, is as a healthy move away from my tendency to overthink, intellectualize, and theorize,” he adds. “Spontaneity is direct, engaging with the present.”

Some practitioners of improvised music set aside structure and tonality. But Hoefner says he and Oore strive for harmonic sophistication and structural depth in their improvisations. As the music on The Ecstasy of Becoming unfurls, it can be both unfettered and lyrically song-like at the same time.

“Our musical languages are very compatible,” Hoefner says. “When I enter a certain harmonic zone or vibe, I feel like Dani immediately understands where I am going and is able to follow right away. His ears are really incredible.”

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At their workshop, Hoefner and Oore will help musicians of all stripes discover “the joy and freedom of making music without any prescribed material,” Hoefner says.

“We are going to work on the core musical and communication skills at the centre of improvisation and hope to help people overcome any blockages or fears,” he says. If you are new to free improvisation, “you really have to strip your playing of all complexities and virtuosity and start out with simple things that you are able to hear with your inner ear,” he adds.

Hoefner gives an example of how he works on his own improvising by practising with his eyes closed, or even with a sleep mask on, to block out visual cues. “(I) just follow my ear… shifting the generation of ideas from the fingers and hands to my musical imagination.”

Oore says the skills of a musical improviser are not specific to music. They include perceiving, developing and recognizing intuitions about how to contribute to what you perceive, having the dignity and courage to act on one’s intuitions, and being willing to strive for “some ideal balance.”

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“I believe we all have the skills to make improvised music,” Oore says. “Improvisation is a critical life skill and humans seem innately musical. I imagine they’re the same or analogous musical skills as you would need to have fulfilling interactions at a party or social gathering, interactions which are typically equally improvised.”

Flying Pooka
Workshop: Oct. 18 at 1 p.m., Freiman Hall, Perez Building, 550 Cumberland St.
Tickets: free at eventbrite.ca (search for “pooka”)

Concert: Wednesday, Oct. 18 at 8 p.m., Tabaret Hall, 550 Cumberland St.
Tickets: starting at $5 at eventbrite.ca (search for “pooka”)

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