Alexandra Morozova and I founded ORTA in 2015 as an interdisciplinary company in which music would play a key role. This was influenced by my experience of participating in three professional music groups and writing music for two films, as well as working at the Moscow Stanislavsky Electrotheatre as an assistant director to the outstanding composer and director of musical theater Heiner Goebbels. As a composer, Heiner made dozens of radio and stage productions, made several projects with Heiner Müller himself, and was nominated for a Grammy. As a director, he has received many international awards, including the prestigious Ibsen Prize. My own views on theater are very close to his. I consider him one of my teachers, and some of his core theatrical principles formed the basis of our practice.

The basic principle of the Fragile Orchestra is the acceptance of any instrument, sound, word, note and melody. But prior to that it is, of course, the acceptance of any person. Music in the Fragile Orchestra is understood as a practice in which anyone can participate, regardless of whether they have an “ear for music,” musical education or other generally accepted “musical data”. Its purpose is not in representation, that is, not in creating some kind of “beautiful” or “correct” piece of music that must be presented to some outside listeners. Its purpose is in the very process of joint confidential creativity, subordinated only to the inner feeling of the music of each participant. Therefore, the criteria for evaluating, for example, a classical piece of music, are not applicable to the Fragile Orchestra. As for the technique, according to our observations, in the process of practicing the Fragile Orchestra, a certain general musical or figurative theme arises — it always arises spontaneously and naturally, and then develops, expands or even unfolds in the process of playing music. Sometimes this theme can be a popular song known to all the participants, sometimes some idiomatic expression or saying.

And so, for the project The Appearance of the First Volume of the Novel in Thousands of Volumes, we made an open call and assembled a Fragile Orchestra of 8 strangers. We did not select anyone or weed anyone out — everyone who wanted to come, came and stayed. People brought different instruments to rehearsals, and also used various improvised objects as tools: tables, plates, chains, hoses. For a month we improvised, as a result of which not only the musical basis of the performance was born, but also its very structure. The play was shown for three evenings in the large marble hall of the Central House of the Army in Almaty.