CRI Orchestra – Croatian Improvisers Orchestra is a collective of about twenty Croatian musicians active in the field of experimental and improvised music. Their foundation lies in experimental music, a conceptual approach, and gameplay composition, drawing on artistic practices where the conductor/composer communicates musical ideas with the ensemble through gestures and signs: Conduction by Lawrence “Butch” Morris and Soundpainting by Walter Thompson. CRIO uses these sign languages as one of the tools for real-time composition.

The motivation for founding CRI Orchestra in 2018 stemmed from the existence of STiCRi (Styrian Improvisers Croatian Improvisers), an international improvisational orchestra of Styrian and Croatian musicians, who first gathered in 2014 at the Audioart Festival in Pula. The collective’s members are musicians from various backgrounds who share a common interest in improvisational practices and musical experiments. While their initial eclecticism is evident, they still form a cohesive collective. Although they resist genre classifications, CRIO is essentially an avant-rock collective that incorporates electroacoustic composition and improvisation as its expressive tools.

After a two-year hiatus, CRIO is reuniting to present the vinyl release of In my next life I want to be a feedback (Kopaton Records and Cantus), recorded live in 2023 as part of the Music Biennale Zagreb, in the Gorgona Hall of the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb. The performances in Zagreb and Pula will be preceded by an artistic residency at KONTEJNER, during which CRIO will decide how to present the album, which documents a group improvisation.